





= 


=, 





° 


ARE LUN. 


HCL, 





appear A lt TUPPER IE CIES ELE CES RS 


hal ¥ 





PAOLO erg Ne 


_ a 












CR am = 
: - ieee Tar al ® ; 





“HIM D 


as y . “ ‘ 3 F ee te fet of -— 
2 Peatinaeenaeicietgeae nr cage na i aw fi a I TTT ga i ont 


ae 








SSS IS ie SESS SES te 
br Fe % Yo 





are ene Be 


i ae a 


THE UNIVERSITY 
OF ILLINOIS 


LIBRARY 
252 


Sore 





) | 


al 


ns ay me 3 4 ‘ 








* 


THE MASTER THOUGHTS OF MASTER MINDS. 


A NECESSITY TO EVERY FAMILY. 





‘ TESTIMONIALS TO SUNDAY HALF-HOURS. 





PRESBYTERIAN. 


Rev. JOHN W. DULLES, Dib, Editorial Secretary Presbyterian Board of Publication, Philadelphia. 

In ‘Sunday Half-Hours with the Great Preachers,’’ Mr. Simons makes a ¢ruly 
valuable contribution to literature. His selections from the great men of the pulpit 
are catholic, judicious, intelligent, evangelical. The range of authors covers,the eras 
as well-as the branches of the Christian church, stretching from Chrysostom and 
Augustine, through Luther and Calvin and Latimer, to Bunyan, Wesley, Whitefield, 
and more modern worthies, Alexander, Barnes, D’Aubigne, Goulburn, Spurgeon, and 
their compeers. THE VOVUMEIS EMINENTLY RICH. Its wide diversity in age and style 
easts a sparkling lustre upon the solid unity of faith in Christ as held in all countries, 
all lands, and all branches of the church universal. 

The introductory notices of the authors, and, still more, the index to the leading thoughts 
contained in their discourses, greatly add to the value of this ADMIRABLE BOOK. 
JoHN W. DULLES. 


Rev. WM. E. SCHENCK, D.D., Corresponding Secretary Presbyterian Board of Publication, Philadelphia. 

THIs IS A NOBLE VOLUME, well worth owning and well worth a careful perusal. The 
preachers represented in it are all acknowledged leaders and masters in the realms of 
elevated thought and of religious instruction. The selections from their sermons 
have been made with rare good judgment. The typography and general getting up 
of the book are admirable. It is well worthy a place in every library, private and 
apc. WILLIAM E. SCHENCK. 

Rey. G. W. MUSGRAVE, D.D. 

By request, I have cursorily examined the volume, entitled ‘‘Sunday Half-Hours 
with the Great Preachers,’’ compiled by M. Laird Simons. The discourses are from 
many of the most eminent divines of various ages, countries, and denominations, 
distinguished for their ability, learning, and piety. The evangelical writings of the 
preachers referred to are adapted to be useful to all classes of readers. Of course I 
cannot indorse the men representing heretical sects, nor any sentiments which are not, 
in my judgment, orthodox. ‘Trusting to the discrimination of the reader, and believ- 
ing that by far the greater portion of the work is sound and edifying, I cheerfully 
recommend the volume to the public. G. W. Muserave. 


Rev. HERRICK JOHNSON, D.D., Pastor First Presbyterian Church, Washington Square, Philadelphia. 
While not to be understood as indorsing every position taken in the sermons that 


are here gathered from the ages, I do, nevertheless, commend as a volume of RARE EX- 


CELLENCE “Sunday Half-Hours with the Great Preachers.’’ Here are many of the 
master minds of the church, princes in Israel, dealing in a masterly way with the deep 
things of God. One can hardly fail to rise from the reading of this volume without 
being profoundly impressed with the grandeur of the themes and the intellectual and 


Spiritual discrimination of most of the men discussing them. 


HERRICK JOHNSON. 


2 


METHODIST. 


Rey. A. J. KYNETT, D.D., Corresponding Secretary Church Extension Society of the M. E. Church, Philadelphia. 


‘‘Sunday Half-Hours with the Great Preachers’’ will give Christian readers a 
quiet Pentecost; for though no sound ‘‘as of a rushing mighty wind” or living voice 
is heard, yet out of the various Christian ages and churches and countries we do hear 
them speak, with tongues of fire, the wonderful works of God. With beautiful variety, 
individual, ecclesiastical, and natural, we have glorious Christian unity. . 

Methodists will be gratified to find here names familiar as household words: 
Wesley, Whitefield, Bishop Thomson, McClintock, and Stockton speak with others 
of the mighty dead; while Simpson, Ames, Fowler, and Punshon swell the voice of 
the living. If, in some cases, the ‘‘ Half-Hours’’ should be prolonged the reader will 
not regret it, and stranger preachers will be welcomed with familiar friends. 

In its conception and execution the work is worthy of the catholicity of the age, and 
SHOULD BE WELCOMED TO EVERY CHRISTIAN FAMILY. A. J. KYNETT. 


Rey. E. 0. HAVEN, D.D., President of Northwestern University of the M. E. Church, Evanston, Ill. 


I have looked over with interest the ‘‘Sunday Half-Hours with the Great 
Preachers,’’ and read in full some of the discourses, and think Mr. Simons has made 
a valuable selection of sermons, to give the character of the most efficient preaching, 
ancient and modern. It is well to have brought together some choice specimens of 
this kind, not merely as literary curiosities, but to show the nature of the thoughts 
and expressions that have given efficiency to the Christian church in many nations and 
generations. I think the work worthy of a place on the book-shelves of preachers, 
and in all public libraries. E. O. HAVEN. 


Rev. C. H. PAYNE, D.D., Pastor of Spring Garden Street M. E. Church, late of the Brooklyn Conference. 


‘‘Sunday Half-Hours with the Great Preachers’’ was a happy conception, which, 
by judicious labor, has been successfully wrought out and presented to the public, 
in crystallized form, in this most attractive volume of sermons. 

To sit in your easy chair at home and travel over the track of buried centuries, 
and across the continent, listening the while to the most eloquent utterances of the 
world’s most eloquent preachers, is a privilege of INESTIMABLE VALUE, which this volume 
places within the reach of all. Fifty-two sermons, containing the best thoughts of 
some of the best thinkers in the church of Christ, for successive generations, form a 
theological and literary thesawrus, RICH AND RARE AND PRICELESS. 

The volume will be read by thousands; for it is one of the signs of the times that 
sermon-literature never had so many readers as it has to day. Happy the man who 
spends his ‘‘ Sunday Half-Hours’’ in such companionship as this work affords. 

C. H. Payne. 


Rev. HENRY W. WARREN, D.D., Pastor of Arch Street Methodist Episcopal Church, late of the Boston 
Conference. 

I cordially commend ‘‘Sunday Half-Hours with the Great Preachers.” Many 
have gone a thousand miles to hear what is here brought to our doors. We accept it 
as a token that Christ’s prayer for the unity of his church is being fulfilled; that we 
gather, preserve, and cherish sweet spices from the Lord’s garden, of every age and 
name. As we here compare the statements of teachers of Christian doctrine we are 
struck with the fact that God’s spirit is in all, and that his truth is held by each. It 
will make us broader men to recognize it. Henry W. WARREN. — 


EPISCOPAL. 


Rey. C. M. BUTLER, D.D., Professor of Ecclesiastical History and Liturgies, Divinity School, Protestant Episcopal 
Church, West Philadelphia. 


The object of the author of this book seems to have been to select some of the best 
sermons of the best preachers, of all ages, and of various denominations; and in carry- 
ing out this plan he has included preachers of wide doctrinal divergencies—such as 
Calvin and Channing, Stanley and McIlvaine, D’Aubigne and Robertson—and yet 
at the same time, has selected discourses on such topics as that each of all the schools 
represented in the volume may find in all of them something edifying and profitable. 
The volume appears to me to be well adapted to the closet aud the family circle; and many 
of its discourses could be profitably read, in whole or in part, by lay readers, and to mis- 
sionary congregations. C. M. BuTLER. 


Rev. D. R. GOODWIN, D.D., LL.D., Professor of Systematic Divinity, Divinity School of the Protestant Episcopal 
Church, West Philadelphia, and late Provost of the University of Pennsylvania. 


From a cursory examination I am led to believe that Mr. Simons’ ‘‘ Half-Hours ”’ 
contains a valuable collection of sermons. With the same end in view, different 
persons would, of course, make different selections; and the taste and judgment of one 
man can hardly be expected to commend itself, in all cases, to the taste and judgment 
of every, or, perhaps, of any other. D. R. Goopwin. 


Rey. R. B. CLAXTON, D.D., Professor of Homiletics and Pastoral Care, Divinity School of the Protestant Episcopal 
Church, West Philadelphia. 


In the present day sermons are often spoken of as if they had little interest or 
value, beyond the time of their delivery. This volume ought to satisfy its readers 
that this department of literature is rich in material, worthy of a place among the 
works of standard authors. 

I should have been glad if the compiler had found room for more than three 
sermons from the American Episcopal Pulpit: yet when I remember that there are 
but nineteen from American preachers, in the whole book, I am inclined to the con- 
clusion that Mr. Simons has taken such a course as is likely to secure a general cir- 
culation for his volume. R. B. CLAxTon. 


Rey. WILLIAM SUDDARDS, D.D., Rector of Grace Church, Philadelphia, and Editor of “ The British Pulpit.” 


The rise and progress of Christianity may be seen and read in the lives and labors 
of her ministering servants. No scholarship has been richer or more various than 
that which has been consecrated to God in the gospel of His Son. No eloquence has 
stirred the heart of man more deeply than that which has been heard from the Christian 
pulpit. The great preachers of the ages, as they have rolled along, have been the 
greatest powers of the world. They have ‘subdued kingdoms”’ and wrought righteous- 
ness. Multitudes of the dead, among the number, still speak to us through the written 
page, and it cannot but be profitable to read these expositions, illustrations, and reason- 
ings on the Divine Word, by which, under the influence of the Holy Ghost, they 
instructed and purified humanity. This volume presents a goodly array of talent, 
earnestness, and variety, from the most distinguished Theologians to the humble Tinker 
of Bedford; and while there may be occasionally found something to grate upon the 
ears of the positive thinker, there is much that will afford instruction and comfort to 
all who love the Lord Jesus in sincerity and truth. WILLIAM SUDDARDS. 


4 


BAPTIST. 
THE NATIONAL BAPTIST, Rev. Lemvet Moss, D.D., Editor. 


‘Sunday Half-Hours with the Great Preachers.” This is a title of a book happily 
designed and happily executed. There are fifty-two discourses by as many preachers, 
representing all ages of Christianity, from Chrysostom to Spurgeon, and all denomina- 
tions. The compiler’s aim has been to select such sermons as are thoroughly evangeli- 
eal, while worthy of permanent popular recognition, and fairly representative of their 
authors. Of course many volumes would be needful to hold all the sermons entitled. | 
to continued preservation, and every one will not be entirely satisfied with Mr. Simons’ — 
judgment, in some cases where a decision is confessedly difficult; but there can be no 
doubt of the value of what he has chosen, and we hope that very many will prize the 
opportunity of having such a rare variety of the best religious literature in a form so 
convenient. Each sermon is prefaved by a brief sketch of its author, giving the prin- 
cipal dates and facts in his career. There is also an admirable index, containing an 
analysis of each sermon, together with an alphabetical arrangement of the leading 
thoughts. The book ought to have a wide sale. 


Rev. GEORGE DANA BOARDMAN, D.D., Pastor First Baptist Church, Philadelphia. 


It gives me wnusual pleasure to commend ‘Sunday Half-Hours with the Great 
Preachers.’’ Not that I have read the sermons, but the names of the preachers are 
such as to justify the strongest expectation that their efforts are marked by great in- 
tellectual force and honest purpose to unfold truth as it isin Jesus. Not the least 
valuable element of this book is the evidence it furnishes that the followers of the 
Nazarene, though bearing different churchly names, are really but one church in 
Christ. GEORGE D. BOARDMAN. 


Rev. HENRY G. WESTON, D.D., Editor of ‘‘ The Baptist Quarterly.” 


The selections of sermons in ‘‘Sunday Half-Hours’”’ has been made with excellent 
judgment, and the book is a very valuable one. Henry G. WESTON. 


A large handsome volume of 846 pages, 8vo. Illustrated with six 
beautiful steel portraits of D’ Aubigne, Bishop McIlvaine, Henry Ward 
Beecher, Jonathan Edwards, &c. 


Price, Fine Cloth, Extra, ciiic isos. sdd eee eae ade e eee $3 75 
es Library iStyles: cic: chessecor eee a ee oe eases railaaatees 450 
a6 PR afi Calyy Re. oa roe pach ere oe ok tier oe el. See ee 5 50 


SOLD ONLY BY SUBSCRIPTION. 


Good and reliable agents wanted in every county and township, to 
whom exclusive territory will be given. Liberal discount allowed, 
Teachers and theological. students especially will find this a most profita- 
ble work to canvass for; almost every family will need a copy to read 
on Sundays, when prevented from attending church by sickness or 
stormy weather. Apply to 


PORTER & COATES, 


822 CuEstNuUT St., PHILADELPHIA. 





SEND AY: 


~HALF-HOURS 


GREAT PREACHERS. 


WITH BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES, AND AN INDEX, 


By M. LAIRD SIMONS, 


o4d 


AUTHOR OF “COMPANION ARTICLES TO THE PICTORIAL HOME BIBLE.” 


“These are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that 
believing ye might have life through his name.”—John zz, 31, 





PHILADELPHIA: 
Orhan WCAC) AL HS’ 


822 Chestnut Street. 


Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by 
M. LATRD SIMONS, 


In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 





ae, © aaptaetaeseev mene i 


MEARS & DUSUNBERY, STZR:OTYPERS, H. B, ASHMEAD, PRINTER, 


Renu he () na * 


Ly ok, oF CAN) Sado, 


Lf Ok 


PREFACE. 


“ SunpaAy Haur-Hours wiTH THE GREAT PREACHERS,’ is 
a collection of fifty-two evangelical Sermons, selected from the 
writings of the master divines of Christendom, and representing 
its chief countries, denominations, and ages. It is an attempt to 
make better known a part of the treasures of Christian literature. 
Volumes of Sermons by wise and godly pastors exist in profusion. 
Especially since the Reformation, have appeared many able and 
brilliant homilies, seeking to 


‘‘ Justify the ways of God to man,”’ 


which humanity cannot afford to let die. It has been the Editor’s 
aim to collect in one work the most eloquent of these, and thus 
give the reader a broad outlook over the field of religious truth. 
The present century, alive with manifestations of Christ-like 
zeal in the thoughts and deeds of its generations, has also been 
drafted upon liberally. Thanks are due for the privilege of using 
copyright-matter of much value, as well as for occasional favors of 
manuscript contributions ; for all these instances of courtesy ac- 
knowledgments are elsewhere made. From the abundant material 
thus within control, the Editor has sought to give the public the 
best—or most edifying—Sernion of each peculiarly representative 
Preacher, and to embrace them all within the compass of a year’s 
Sabbath reading. This needful limitation of plan has compelled 
the exclusion of many gifted names, well worthy a place within 
these pages; for how could the number of fifty-two exhaust the 
foremost apostolic heroes who have warred for Christ during nine- 
teen centuries! Yet, with scarcely an exception, the ministers 
chosen are reverenced by the whole or a part of the Christian 
Church. 
(iii) 


687127 


iv PREFACE. 


Throughout, the Editor has sought to act with the catholic 
charity befitting a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. Sectarian 
bias and denominational prejudices are now, most happily, little 
favored by Christian brethren, who love to unite in acknowledging 
and following the one great Captain of our Salvation. Yet this 
charity has not been herein favored at the expense of evangelic 
truth. ach branch of the Church of Christ has been as fairly 
represented as its literature demanded. Wherever practicable, 
each Sermon is a verbatim reprint from the standard edition of 
each author’s works, thus preserving the individuality of punctu- 
ation, capitals, etc. An exception has been made to this rule by 
substituting modern usage in place of antiquated spelling, and by 
modifying the inordinate use of capitals in the case of Who and 
Himself, when applied to the Deity. Never has the slightest 
liberty been taken to prune or expunge any sentiment expressed, 
as such action would have been a gross violation of personal rights ; 
yet several times, beczuse of extreme length, slight omissions have 
been made of matter local in interest, or otherwise irrelevant. 
The concise biographical notices prefixed are designed to exhibit 
the personality of each divine, and show his special labors for 
mankind. They afford the opportunity of presenting some of the 
choicest Christian works to the attention of the reader. In the 
Index is given an analysis of each Sermon, together with an alpha- 
betic arrangement of the leading thoughts, thus affording means 
of easy reference to these varied contents. 


CONTENTS. 


I. THE CROSS OF JESUS CHRIST - - in . Z 
J. H. Merwe D’Avsiené, D. D. 


“ But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord 
Jesus Christ,’—Gal. vi. 14. 


eMEUIeYN GOD ees ae ot ote POP tae 
THomAs ARNOLD, D. D. 
“God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”—Matt. xxii. 32. 


III. THE BLESSINGS OF A BENIGNANT SPIRIT - s 2 
ALBERT BARNES. 


“ Put on, therefore, as the elect of God—kindness.”—Col. iii. 12. 


IV. THE HEAVENLY FOOTMAN - = a ct ic 
JOHN BUNYAN. 


“ So run that ye may obtain.”—1 Cor, ix. 24. 


V. GOD’S LOVE TO FALLEN MAN  - 4 A s A 
JOHN WESLEY. 


“ Not as the tranagression, so is the free gift.”’—Romans y. 15. 


VI. THE BELIEVER’S PORTION IN CHRIST t = M 
Bisoop Cuarzes Pettit McItvaine, D. D., D.C. L. 


“ Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be 
partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.”—Col. i. 12. 


VII. ON THE LORD’S PRAYER NARS = x = 2 
AUGUSTINE. 


“ Our Father-which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy 
kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. 
Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debte, 
as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, 
but deliver us from evil.’”’—Matt. vi. 9-13. 

(v) 


32 


40“ 


81 


94 


110 


vil CONTENTS. 


VIII. CATHOLICITY OF THE GOSPEL - - - = S 
CHARLES Hopgee, D. D. 


“Ts he God of the Jews only, and not of the Gentiles also ?”— 
Romans iii. 29. 


IX. CHARACTER OF CHRIST - - - - = a 
WiL_uiAM ELLERY CHANNING, D. D. 


“ This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” —Matt. xvii. 5, 


X. THE FIRST PROPHECY + - - - “ > 


Henry MELVILLE, B. D. 


“ And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between 
thy seed and her seed ; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt 
bruise his heel.”—Genesis iii. 15. : 


XI. A DAY IN THE LIFE OF JESUS OF NAZARETH - - 
Francis WAYLAND, D. D., LL.D. 


“ And the apostles, when they were returned, told him all that they 
had done. And he took them, and went aside privately inte a 
desert place, belonging to the city called Bethsaida. And the 
people when they knew it, followed him, and he received them 
and spake unto them of the kingdom of God, and healed them 
that had need of healing. And when the day began to wear 
away, then came the twelve, and satd unto him, Send the multi- 
tude away, that they may go into the towns and country round 
about, and lodge, and get victuals; for we are here in a desert 
place. But he said unto them, Give ye them to eat. And they 
said, We have no more but five loaves and two fishes ; except we 
should go and buy meat for all this people. For they were about 
jive thousand men, And he said to his disciples, Make them sit 
down by fifties in a company. And they did 80, and made them 
all sit down. Then he took the five loaves and the two fishes, and 
looking up to heaven, he blessed them and brake, and gave to the 
disciples to set before the multitude. And they did eat, and were 
all filled ; and there was taken up of fragments that remained to 
them, twelve baskets.””— Luke ix. 10-17. 


XII. THE METHOD OF GRACE -| |. .  — Suan 


GEORGE WHITEFIELD. 


“ They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people 
slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace,”— 
Jer. vi. 14. 
XIII. KEEPING ALIVE THE LOVE OF GOD. - - . 
ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER, D. D. 


“‘ Keep yourselves in the love of God.”—Jude 21, 


156 6 


1s0;¥ 


197 


CONTENTS. 


XIV. ACCESS TO GOD - - - - - - ~ = 
; Joun Foster. 

“ He that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a re- 
warder of them that diligently seek him.’’—Heb. xi. 6. 

XV. THE LONELINESS OF CHRIST - se ~ - - 
FREDERICK WILLIAM ROBERTSON. 

“* Jesus answered them, Do ye now believe? Behold, the hour cometh, 
yea, 18 now come, that ye shall be scattered every man to his own, 
and shall leave me alone ; and yet Iam not alone, because the 
Father is with me.”’—John xvi. 31, 32. 

AVISIMPROVEMENT, OF TIME® 6 i 0 a pedi ar 
Rowand HI. 

“This month shall be unto you the beginning of months ; it shall be 
the first month of the year to you.””—Exodus xii. 2. 

XVII. WRATH UPON THE WICKED TO THE UTTERMOST~ - 
JONATHAN EDWARDS. 

“ To fill up their sins alway ; for the wrath has come upon them to 
the uttermost.”—1 Thess. ii. 16. 

XVIII. FOOLISHNESS OF THE CROSS CONQUERING - - 
. CHRYSOSTOM. 

“ For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness ; 
but to us which are saved it is the power of God. For it is written, 
I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing 
the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Whereis 
the scribe ? Whereis the disputer of this world ?”—1 Cor. i. 18-20. 

XIX. MARKS OF LOVE TO GOD - - ~ 4 : 
Rozert HAutt. 

“Dut I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you.”— 
John v. 42. 

XX. CONDESCENSION OF CHRIST - - = a “ 
CyaRLES Happon SPURGEON. 

“ For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he 
was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his 
poverty might be rich.” —2 Cor, viii. 9. 

XXI. ON ENDURING PERSECUTION FOR CHRIST - - 
JouHN CALVIN, 


‘‘ Let us go forth out of the tents after Christ, bearing his reproach.” 
—Heb. xiii. 13. 


241 


254 


266 


280 


297 


309 


323 


i 


~~” 


Vill CONTENTS. 


RXIT. JESUS OF NAZARETH | +- = 9 52) Rae 
ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY, D. D. 
“ Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was, 
Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews,”—John xix. 19, 
XXIII. THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD - - - - - 
TimotHy Dwienut, S. T. D., LL.D. 
“ O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself; it is not in 


man that walketh to direct his steps.” —Jer. x. 23. 


XXIV. THE FIRST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST - : i 
JoHN Knox. 


“ Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert, that he should be 
tempted of the devil.”—Matt. iv. 1. 


XXV. CHRISTIAN HEROISM mi - w te be ¥ 
JACQUES SAURIN. 


“ He that ruleth his Spirit, is better than he that taketh a city.”— 
Proverbs xvi, 32. 


XXVI. ETERNAL REDEMPTION re me = 2 f 
RosBeRT PHILIP. 


“ Tt became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, 
in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their sal- 
vation perfect through sufferings.” —Heb. ii. 10. 


XXVII. THE GIFT OF GOD = ~ =f * g E 
Martin LUTHER. 


“ For God go loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that 
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting 
life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, 
but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on 
him, is not condemned; but he that believeth not, is condemned 
already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begot- 
ten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light is come 
into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because 
their deeds were evil, For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, 
neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But 
he that doeth truth, cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made 
manifest, that they are wrought in God,”—John iii. 16, 21. 


XXVIII. COMMUNION WITH GOD * q - 2 x 
Joun Henry Newmay, B. D. 


“ One thing have I desired of the Lord, which I will require ; even 
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, 
to behold the fair beauty of the Lord, and to visit his temple.”— 
Psalm xxvii. 4. 


PAGE 
349 # 


355 © 


377 


397 * 


417 


429 


444 


CONTENTS. 


XXIX. THE LORD JESUS CHRIST - ear - : 
EpwarD IRVING. 
“ And from the Lord Jesus Christ.”—Eph. i. 2 


XXX. ON CHRISTIAN LOVE - . - ° « = 
Hue LATIMER. 
“ This is my commandment, that ye love one another, as I have loved 
you.”—John xv. 12. 
XXXI. FURY NOT IN GOD - - - - « - 
Tuomas CHALMERS, D, D., LL.D., D. C. L. 


“ Fury is not in mes who would set the briers and thorns against me 
in battle? I would go through them, I would burn them together. 
Or let him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with 
me; and he shall make peace with me.”—Isaiah xxvii. 4, 5. 


XXXII. THE TEACHING OF THE CHURCH - - e 


Epmonp De Pressensé, D. D. 
“ Take heed, therefore, how ye hear.” —Luke viii. 18. 


XXXIII. THE TRANSFIGURATION - = = « A 
CHarLes Kinesxey, D. D. 


“< Jesus taketh Peter, and James, and John, and leadeth them up into 
a high mountain apart, and was transfigured before them.”— 


Mark ix. 2. 


XXXIV. IMPORT OF THE LORD’S SUPPER - “ Z 
Joun McCurntock, D. D., LL.D. 


“ For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the 
Lord’s death till he come,”—1 Cor. xi. 26. 


XXXV. THE GOVERNMENT OF THE TONGUE - - < 


Epwarp Meyrick Goursury, D. D. 


“ For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, 
the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body, 
Behold, we put bits in the horses’ mouths, that they may obey us, 
and we turn about their whole body. Behold also the ships, which, 
though they be so great, and are drivenof fierce winds, yet are they 
turned about with a very small helm, whithersoever the governor 
listeth.”—James iii, 2, 4. 


XXXVI. MAN CONVERTED - - = . [ ~ 
Tuomas Gutariez, D. D. 


« A new heart also will Igive you, and a new spirit will IT put 
within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your 
flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh ’—Fzekiel xxxvi. 26. 


472 7 


agi ~ 


501 7 


518” 


528 -~ 


540 i 


551 


x CONTENTS. 


XXXVII. JESUS IN GETHSEMANE. - - - - . 
Friepricw A. G. THouvuck, D. D. 


“ Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and 
saith unto the disciples, Sit ye here, while Igo and pray yonder. 
And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and 
began to be sorrowful and very heavy. Then saith he unto them, 
My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death; tarry ye here 
and watch with me. And he went alittle farther, and fell on his 
face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this 
cup pass from me; nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt. And 


he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith 


unto Peter, What! could ye not watch with me one hour? Watch 
and pray, that ye enter not into temptation; the spirit indeed ie 
willing, but the flesh is weak. He went away again the second 
time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not 
pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done. And he 
came and found them asleep ayain; for their eyes were heavy. 
And he left them, and went away again, and prayed the third 
time, saying the same words. Then cometh he to his disciples, 
and saith unto them, Sleep on now, and take your rest: behold, the 
hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands 
of sinners. Rise, let us be going: behold, he is at hand that doth 
betray me.”—Matt. xxvi. 36-46. 


XXXVIII. WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST - ° - . 
BrisHop Epwarp Tuomson, D. D., LL.D. 
“ What think ye of Christ.”—Matt. xxii. 42, 


XXXIX. THE CRUCIFIXION - - = 1 


Frirprich WILHELM KRUMMACHER. 


“ And when they were come unto a place called Golgotha, that is to 
say, A place of a skull, they gave him vinegar to drink, mingled 
with gall ; and when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink. 
And they crucified him.”—Matt. xxvii. 33-5, 


XL. CHRISTIAN VICTORY - - : - 4 Bs 


Newman Hatt, D, D. 


“6 To him that overcometh, will I give to eat of the hidden manna, 
and will give him a white stone, and in the stonea new name 
written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.”— 
Rey. ii. 17. 


XLI. THE RESURRECTION OF OUR LORD - a 


Bisuop MattHew Simpson, D. D., LL.D. 


“ But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first 
fruits of them that slept.””—1 Cor. xv. 20. 


582 


598 | 


609 v 


625 » 


CONTENTS. 


XLII. MESSIAH’S THRONE - - - - : es 
Joun MitcHeLtt Mason, D. D. 


“Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever.”’—Heb. i. 18. 


XLIII. THE GAIN OF GODLINESS - 4 - - 
BisHop Epwarp R. Ames, D. D., LL.D. 


“For bodily exercise projiteth little ; but godliness is profitable unto 
all things, having promise of the life that now ts, and of that 
which is to come.”—1 Tim. iv. 8. 


XLIV. CHRIST'S ADVENT TO JUDGMENT - - .- 
JEREMY TayLor, D. D. 


“ For we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, that 
every one may receive the things done in his body, according to 
that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.” —2 Cor. v.10. 


XLV. THE GOOD SAMARITAN =- < 2. Ss Po 
WituiaAmM Hanna, D.D., LL.D. 


“ And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, 
Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? He said unto him, 
What is written in the law? how readest thou ? And he answering 
said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and 
with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy 
mind ; and thy neighbor as thyself. And he said unto him, Thow 
hast answered right ; this do, and thou shalt live. But he, will- 


ing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who ts my neighbor ? 
—Luke x. 25-9. 


XLVI. THE HEALING WATERS  - - - « S 


Wiii1AmM Mortey Punsnon, D, D. 


“ And itt shall come to pass that everything that liveth, which moveth, 
whithersoever the rivers shall come, shall live; and there shall be 
avery great multitude of fish, because these waters shall come 
thither: for they shall be healed; and everything shall live 
whither the river cometh.””—Ezekiel xlvii. 9. 
XLVII. NICODEMUS, THE SEEKER AFTER RELIGION - 
Epwin H. CwHapin, D. D. 
“ There was aman of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the 
Jews: The same came to Jesus by night.”—John iii. 1-2. 
XLVIII. UNSEARCHABLENESS OF GOD’S THOUGHTS - 


Bisnop Atonzo Porter, D. D., LL.D. 


“ My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, 
saith the Lord,.”—Isaiah lv. 8. 


664 ~ 


703 * 


714 | 


732 


748 


xii CONTENTS. 


XLIX. THE PROBLEM OF JOY AND SUFFERING IN LIFE 757 F 
Henry Warp BEECHER. 
“ Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.” — 
Prov. iii. 3. 
“In the world ye shall have tribulation ; but be of good cheer: Ihave 
overcome the world.”—John xvi. 33. 
L. DIVINE AND HUMAN COPARTNERSHIP. - - a 782 / 
CHARLES Henry Fow.er, D. D. 
“For ye are laborers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry: ye 
are God’s building.”—1 Cor. iii. 9. 
LI. THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD *- - - - - 797” 
TREADWELL WALDEN. 
“A man’s heart deviseth his way, but the Lord direrteth his steps,’’— 
Prov. xvi. 9. 
LII. A CHRISTMAS SERMON - - - - - - 809 Vv 
Toomas Hewuines Stockton, D. D. 
“Glory to God.”—Luke ii. 14. 


SUNDAY HALF-HOURS 


WITH 


THE GREAT PREACHERS. 


I, 
THE CROSS OF JESUS CHRIST. 


D’ AUBIGNE. 


[Jean Henri Merwe D’Avsiené, D.D., comes from a French Hugue- 
not stock, that accounted life well spent in upholding evangelical re- 
ligion. His great-grandfather had to fly to Geneva at the revocation of 
the Edict of Nantes ; and his grandfather was exiled to the same city in 
old age. Here Jean was born, August 16th 1794. His theological 
studies, commenced at Geneva, were completed at Berlin, under the 
celebrated Neander. After a pastorate in Hamburg, and later in 
Brussels as chaplain to King William, he returned to Geneva in 1830. 
At once he was appointed president of its new theological seminary, 
and vice-president of the Evangelical Society. His great work is, 
‘History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century,” in the times 
of Luther and Calvin, of which nearly a half million copies have 
been sold. It is an eloquent, pious, and impartial portraiture of those 
thrilling times. His appearance is noble and commanding; his 
vivacity keen, and energy exhaustless. The following Sermon was 
preached by him on a Good Friday.] 


“But God forbid that I should glory, save ‘in the cross of our Lord 
Jesus Christ.”’—Gal. vi. 14. 


My brethren, God has not intended that men should be 


deprived of all boasting. A disposition to boast is one of 


the propensities most peculiar to our nature, and which we 
(13) 


14 J. H. MERLE D’AUBIGNE. 


find in all classes of society and among all varieties of the 
human race. From him who stands on the highest eleva- 
tion in the world down to the most unknown; from the 
inhabitant of our cities, whose spirit towers on high, down 
to the very savage, whose reason is scarcely observable ;. all 
find something of which they believe that they may boast.— 
And what is it then?—A ridiculous plaything, of which they 
should blush, instead of making it the object of their pride. 
Oh! sad spectacle of our vanity, which proves with the 
greatest precision that the human race has lost that in which 
it could glory, that it has come short of the glory of God 
(Rom. iii. 28); and that in this great need it stretches out 
its hand to the first plaything that it finds to put it in the 
place of the reality which it wants. Thus the inhabitant 
of a city in the utmost state of famine seizes with desire the 
loathsome food, from the very sight of which at another 
time all his senses would have revolted. 

God would give men an object in which they could better 
glory. He has given them the cross of Jesus Christ. . 

‘God forbid that I should glory,” says St. Paul in our 
text, ‘‘save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” And 
through these words he pronounces the sentence of con- 
demnation against all deceitful things, which are in general 
our idols; he commands all men to cease from their vain 
endeavors, and he exalts the cross of Jesus Christ, as the 
only object worth glorying in for all intelligent beings till 
the end of time. But when the apostle says in the cross of 
Christ, think not that he understands thereby the wood, the 
outward sign, the figure with which one meets so frequently 
in many regions of Christendom, and which has been so 
often abused by superstition. He intends to denote thereby 
the death of the Son of God, which took place when the ful- 
ness of the time was come for the remission of our sins. 
But he uses the expression the cross only to remind us that 
this kind of death was held as accursed among all people, 


THE CROSS OF JESUS CHRIST. 15 


that the death in which we ought to glory was full of humi- 
liation, shame, and ignominy, and even accursed of God. 
(Gal. iii. 13). 

See then here, my brethren, the glorying which God 
your Creator allows you, and which He Himself would give 
you. The day which we now commemorate is the only 
ground of greatness which can be within the reach of the 
human race. Never would man have been really able to 
glory if the hill of Calvary had not 1800 years ago dis- 
played the spectacle which we see on it; if man had not 
there crucified this Jesus, who had previously been sent by 
Pilate to Herod and by Herod to Pilate; if he had not 
been there suspended on the tree, “‘a reproach of men, and 
despised of the people” (Ps. xxii. 6); and if the terrible 
sentence had not fallen on the only innocent head that ever 
lived on earth. This is the day on which the great contest 
was engaged in, on which the great deed was finished which 
won for us honor and immortality. This is the day on which 
our eternal nobility was registered in the book of life. 

“‘ God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our 
Lord Jesus Christ.’’ Let the present meditation be devoted 
to the examination of this new object of glorying. 

There are two opinions concerning this object: one is the 
apostle’s; we will support it. The other is the world’s; we 
will refute it. Or, we will first state the dignity of the cross 
of Christ, and then test our feelings thereby. When we 
have defended the truth and combated error, our work is 
done. 

And do Thou, Lord our God, what Thou hast to do! 
Give the beginning and the end, and thus all. Show us how 
in the cross of Jesus Christ there is hidden all the wisdom 
of God and all the power of God! Amen. 

I. Tue OPINION OF THE APOSTLE. 

The Apostle of the Gentiles proclaims, as we have seen, the 
cross of Jesus Christ as the only object of his boasting. And 


16 J. Ho MERLE D’AUBIGNE, 


the first reason which moved him to do so is certainly this, 
that he sees in the cross the mind and glory of God developed 
in their full splendor. St. Paul had learnt to know God in 
his early years; but the zeal which impelled him before 
his conversion so violently to persecute the disciples of the 
Nazarene, shows sufficiently of what nature this know- 
ledge was. The cross of Jesus Christ had now been re- 
vealed to him, and it made him acquainted with a God 
of whom he had learnt nothing in the school of Gama- 
liel, and he boasts of that to which he owed this wonderful 
knowledge. Yes, this cross is the only teacher which reveals 
to us the living God. If we even exhaust our knowledge, 
we shall not truly know God if the cross of Jesus Christ 
have given us no instruction. Without it even nature and 
conscience speak in dark sayings, and what is most import- 
ant for us to know remains veiled from our eyes. Where 
will you come to the knowledge of God’s holiness, His unut- 
terable abhorrence of sin, which gives you such earnest 
warnings? Conscience says something to you; but if you 
would have quite a different idea of it, come to the cross of 
Jesus Christ—see him in whom dwells all the fulness of the 
Godhead bodily, fastened to the cross on account of sin, 
and because unrighteousness dwells on the earth. Will you 
then still retain unsettled views of the holiness of God? 
Will you still doubt whether God has given the world a tell- 
ing proof of his holiness? | 

Where will you arrive at ‘the knowledge of God’s love, 
this infinite mercy which should be the ground of all your 
joy? Nature will teach you something here also; but if 
you would hear this subject spoken of with power, concern- 
ing which nature seems only to stammer, hasten to the cross 
of Jesus Christ; see the well-beloved Son of the Father 
humble himself unto death, even the death of the cross, that 
the world might have life. Is that not a deed of love? 
‘‘ For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perad- 


THE CROSS OF JESUS CHRIST. 17 


venture for a good man some would even dare to die. 
But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we 
were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”” (Rom. y. 7, 8). 

Where will you discover the glory of God? What is the 
place, O my Lord and my God! where I can find Thee in 
all Thy glory? Shall I seek Thee in the midst of the 
worlds which Thou hast formed, or in an inaccessible light, 
surrounded afar off by all the angels bowing their heads to 
the ground? I can find no spot in the whole universe which 
would answer to Thy glory. Everything is so little in com- 
parison with Thee, everything is so small side by side with 
Thy infinity! But no; I know a spot which answers to all 
Thy glory, and this is an accursed tree, on which Thou art 
fastened. There I recognise Thee in all thy sublimity, 
much more than when surrounded by those thousands of 
thousands who form the guard of Thy throne. (Dan. vii. 10.) 
All these ideas of angels, archangels, and cherubim, which 
bow their heads before Thee are but slight representations, 
borrowed from what man calls greatness; but O Thou who 
wast fastened on a cross for our sin! ‘Thy glory is infinite. 
I see therein not even the slightest human feature; Thou 
hast there a splendor altogether peculiar to Thee; Thou 
appearest in a thoroughly divine light. Oh! I envy not the 
angels and archangels who declare to Thee their unworthi- 
ness when Thou sittest on Thy heavenly throne. To us men 
is it given to worship Thee on a far more glorious throne— 
Thy cross. They forsook the heavens when thou wast fast- 
ened on the cross, because the earth presented to them a 
spectacle which had never been seen in heaven. Only and 
solely at the foot of this cross will I linger, recognising 
Thee, and making my boast—‘‘ God forbid that I should 
glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 

But St. Paul glories in the cross of Christ not only be- 
cause it reveals to him the glory of God, but also because it 
causes him to see his own wretchedness. What must man’s 

B 


-18 J. H. MERLE D’AUBIGNE. 


state be, when such a deed has to be accomplished in order 
to free him from it? Certainly there are voices enough as 
well outside of us as in us to remind us of our nothingness ; 
but how skilfully we can reason away their decisions and 
withdraw ourselves from their judgments! In what a 
deceitful righteousness does man wrap himself up as long 
as the cross of Christ is a strange thing to him; on what a 
height he places himself until the cross abases ‘kita The 
cross of Jesus Christ is the great writing of accusation 
which God hath set forth before the eyes of the whole earth. 
No one can fix his eyes on it without being at the same 
moment convinced. It is truly foolishness for a man to 
believe himself still guiltless, since the Son of God was 
offered up for his sin. Come, my brethren, for the cross of 
Jesus Christ shows you the wounds of your soul; it reveals 
to you your entire desert of condemnation, teaches you the 
entire extent of your sin, and seine in you the very 
last spark of pride. 

O thou who thinkest thou dost still possess so great wor- 
thiness in the sight of God, come, in order to have this idea 
destroyed, to the cross of Christ; come there in order to be 
able to know thine own deserts; the Son of God was obliged 
to shed His blood there in order to save thee from death. 
O thou who boastest in thy virtues, come and consider them 
a little in the light of this Cross, there they will pale away, 
there they will become obscured, and thou wilt find them all 
infected with a selfishness and with a pride which make them 
objects of the divine abhorrence. Let even the most excel- 
lent of men approach; I place him at the foot of that cross 
which was erected even for his salvation, and what will then 
become of his pride? The cross breaks in pieces this 
deceitful glass through which we look upon ourselves as 
greater than we are; it annihilates us. And why then does 
St. Paul glory in it? Because he knows that in his state 
the sense of his wretchedness is his highest dignity. And to 


THE CROSS OF JESUS CHRIST. 19 


us, my brethren, it is not allowed to have another boast than 
that of the Apostle; none of us will be great before God if 
we have not felt our own nothingness before Him. Oh! 
blessed be this cross which has assigned us our right place, 
and which causes us to find in the feeling of our nothing- 
ness the commencement of our glory. 

But when Paul glories in the cross of Christ because it 
had hurled him down from his vain greatness, he boasts also 
chiefly of it because tt raises him to true greatness. The 
great object of his glorying is that such a price has been 
paid for the salvation of his soul, that the Son of God died 
even for the sin which he committed, that the blood shed on 
the cross made a full atonement for all his guilt, and pro- 
cured for him immortality. And what, my dear hearer, is 
thy glory if not the forgiveness of sins? How wouldst thou 
lift up thy head if OnE had not died for thee, if He who 
died for thee were not He who made all things, and who 
preserves all things by the word of his power (2 Cor. v. 14; 
John i. 8; Col. i. 16, 17; Heb. i. 2, 38,10). Thou exertest 
thyself to draw glory and honor out of the smallest offering 
which a dying man brings to thee, and out of the smallest 
trouble which he puts himself to on thy account; and wilt 
thou not glory in this, that the Lord of all things, having 
appeared in flesh, has shed His blood on the cross for thee ? 
It was not on account of His own sins that He was pierced, 
for “I find no fault in Him,” said even His judge. (John 
xix. 4.) The power of men was not the cause of His 
death; for could He not have prayed His Father to send 
Him more than twelve legions of angels? (Matt. xxvi. 53.) 
Why was He then fastened on the cross? It was necessary 
on thy account, my dear brother: this is the only way of 
accounting for it that is left to us. 

Yes, the only cause which slew the Son of the living God 
‘on the cross was the love which He had for thy soul, the 
determination which He had formed to save thee. If He 


20 J. H. MERLE D’AUBIGNE. 


carried out his intention, if pain did not cause Him to waver, 
if He did not shun the terrible hour: it was all in order to 
save thy soul. If He shed all His blood for thee, if He had 
to cry out, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken 
me?’ if He endured an anguish of heart, which far exceeds 
our ideas: the only cause was the salvation of thy soul. If 
He fought out on the cross a great conflict, if He overcame 
sin, the world, death, and hell: He did it to win thy soul. 
He died—-all is accomplished. He has caneelled with His 
own blood the debt which thou couldst never have paid; thou 
art reconciled ; thy offences are taken away; He is now, for 
all them that obey Him, the Author of eternal salvation. 
(Heb. v. 9.) O wonderful death of the only Son of the 
Father! An event which will ever be unique im the history 
of the world! Unsearchable depth of Deity, before which 
the angels bow their heads to the earth, without being able 
to sound its depths! And shouldst thou, my brother, for 
whom this took place, shouldst thou be the only one whom 
it did not move? Shouldst thou alone draw no glory from it ? 
What more wonderful event than this could proceed from 
heaven to earth? At what price wouldst thou be redeemed 
if this, which has been paid, does not suffice for thee? How 
high dost thou place thyself if thou slightest the blood of 
the world’s King? What kind of a gift wouldst thou receive 
if an’ eternity of glory has so little value for thee? Oh! 
when thou wilt stand before the judgment-seat of God, and 
when the eye of the Judge will examine the transgression 
of thy soul, oh! what will be then thy hope? What will be 
then thy glory? What can then calm thy heart if thou 
canst not then say, in presence of the Judge and of all those 
who stand before Him: “Christ died for my sins.” (1 Cor. 
xv. 3.) Yes, my brethren, only the unbeliever can fix his 
eye on this cross without finding there his glory, because it 
has, indeed, none for him; but the believer discovers there-’ 
_in an infinite glory. My Lord and Saviour, it is truly so, 


THE CROSS OF JESUS CHRIST. 21 


the lower Thy cross is, the more we glory in it; for what 
must that dignity be which is shown to us through such an 
humbling, what must that glory be which is promised to us 
by such an abasement ? 3 

But observe especially the ground which the Apostle him- 
self presents: ‘God forbid that I should glory, save in the 
cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is cruct- 
fied unto me, and I unto the world.”’ That is, indeed, an 
exceedingly great advantage which the cross of Jesus Christ 
bestows ; for therein consists the great wretchedness of man, 
that he cannot free himself from the present world, to be- 
come a citizen of the future one; and the cross of Jesus 
Christ works this miracle. It crucifies man to the world, 
and the world to man. What an expression of power! It 
crucifies you to the world, that is, it crucifies the sin in you 
which causes you to live for the world. Should you not 
hate sin, knowing that Christ died on account of sin? 
Will you not fight against all the motions which it begets in 
your heart? Yes, the Redeemer’s death is the only means 
of infusing into us a lively hatred of our sinful nature. It 
is the only medicine for our wounds. But what is still more, 
the cross of Jesus Christ will crucify the world to you; that 
is, it will annihilate all allurements to the vanities of the 
world. You cannot love Christ and the world at the same 
time. What can the pageantry of the present world be 
worth to him for whom the Cross of Christ has won all the 
treasures of the world to come? Will he not hate the world 
violently ; for if sin was the cause of his Redeemer’s death, 
the world with its passions and excesses was the instrument ! 
The cross crucifying man to this world makes him a citizen 
of the world to come; killing in him the old man of this 
earth, it forms the new man which is of heaven. Where 
Christ is, there is also his treasure and his heart; he is 
risen with Christ. (Col. iii. 1.) In this manner the cross 
works the great change which man needed, and makes him, 


22 J. Ho MERLE D’AUBIGNE. 


whom it found in the dust, a citizen of heaven. In this 
manner the cross accomplishes through its power what no. 
law or human wisdom could perform. ‘God forbid that I 
should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ !”’ 
But the last motive which moved St. Paul, as he travélled 
through Asia, Greece, and Italy, and passed over all seas, 
to cry out that he desired to glory in nothing else, was cer- 
tainly the thought of the power of this cross and the triumphs 
which await it. This great apostle knew that it is sufficient 
to bestow immortality even on those who have already sunk 
into the deepest abyss. He knew what a large number it 
had already redeemed, as well in the cities of Galatia to 
which he wrote, as those in Greece, and at Rome, and Jeru- 
salem. He knew the future destiny of the cross; that 
kings and people would come and cast themselves down be- 
fore it; that the nations would bring their sons in their 
arms; and that all the ends of the earth would become its 
inheritance. (Is. xlix. 22.) And we can see that in part 
fulfilled, which the apostle could only foreknow. This 
unknown cross has raised itself from Calvary, and rules 
already over half of the earth. The prediction of Him 
who was fastened on it has not ceased to be fulfilled: “* And 
I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto 
me.” (John xu. 32.) How many millions of souls in so 
many centuries have fixed their gaze upon it,-as the Israel- 
ites of old did on the brazen serpent, and been saved 
(Num. xxi. 5-9); what a great multitude, won out of the 
kingdom of darkness, celebrate now, before the throne, the 
salvation that has come to them through the Lamb! (Rey. 
vii. 9,10.) All old things have passed away, and everything 
has become new. A new breath of life has floated around 
this orb for 1800 years. The cross of Jesus Christ has 
already conquered multitudes of adversaries: slavery, bar- 
barism, and effeminacy have been obliged to give way before 
it; for in saving individuals it becomes the true power of 


THE CROSS OF JESUS CHRIST. 23 


nations. It accomplishes in its progress the redemption of 
the world; the powers of darkness fly before it, and let go 
their hold of us; at the same time, struggling with super- 
stition which is bent on putting human wretchedness in its 
place or close by it, and with unbelief which is bent on anni- 
hilating it, and which would make men believe that heaven 
has not opened to save the earth; struggling with these, it 
directs its blows right and left against those abominable 
, enemies. Not content with extending its old conquests, it 
hastens through the midst of the heavens to carry on the 
work of regeneration. It is the standard which the Lord 
of hosts set up to the people. (Is. xlix. 22.) Its victories 
multiply ; it assembles men from all sides, whose dispersion 
was caused by their sins; and we, trusting on its almighty 
power, can espy the time when it will be said: Now is the 
whole world our God’s and his Christ’s. Oh! God forbid 
that we should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus 
Christ. If the world tread thee even under its feet, thou 
art nevertheless that by which it is saved. A drop of Thy 
blood, O Lord, is more precious to us than all the riches of 
the universe. 
II. Tae Oprnton or THE WoRLD. 

Is this your language, my brethren? If that is the opin- 
ion of St. Paul, what is yours? ‘There is scarcely a truth 
which could have more opponents in the world than this, 
about which our text speaks to us. How many are there 
who practically say, I glory in all other things than in the 
Cross of Jesus Christ. Are ye of this number? Oh, that 
your conscience testified to you on this day, the day of tri- 
umph for the cross, that you yourselves, since you entered 
this sacred house, and commenced to lend me your atten- 
tion, have neither in your understanding nor in your heart 
cherished feelings or thoughts which are opposed to those of 
St. Paul. 

_ Perhaps you say :—Is it then necessary, to think so much 


24 | J. H. MERLE D’AUBIGNE. 


about this cross? ‘There are so many other objects in reli- 
gion which are much more important than this! More im- 
portant than the cross? I could here point you back to 
what I have just now said, but I prefer to refute you by 
means of yourself. You would set the cross aside as a thing 
of small account, and yet you say almost at the same mo- 
ment this cross, this atoning death of the only begotten Son 
of God is incomprehensible, and our reason is thereby 
brought to nought. How are such opinions to be recon- 
ciled? How can the cross be considered at the same time 
so insignificant and yet so wonderful? If it thus surpasses 
your ideas, whence comes the low value which you assign to 
it? This must be made clear to you. The cross of the Son 
of God cannot exist and yet be insignificant; it is either 
credible or a lie. If it is deserving of credit and true, it is 
the greatest thing in the world, and you must come and re- 
cognise it, and in spirit bow before it. If it is false and a 
lie, you must declare it to be the greatest of all cheats, with 
all our sacred books which proclaim it, and with the whole 
of Christianity of which it is the substance. You must, like 
the first apostates of the Church, trample it under your feet, 
and then swear by the gods of the world. One of the two 
the cross must be to you, either divine wisdom or hellish 
lies. It must either be your ruin or your salvation. There 
is no middle way: you cannot be indifferent about it. 

But that is just what holds us back from it, you will say. 
If the cross is true, all other things fall at once, and we can 
then seek our glory only in Him. But is it true? Is it true 
that the Son of God shed his blood on the tree to procure 
for us eternal life? Yes, my brethren, and the witness 
which should convince us is God himself, who is the truth, 
and who, through His apostle (Eph. ii. 16), declares that 
Jesus Christ reconciled both in one body by the cross. But 
without seeking testimony in heaven, will not the earth itself 
suffice for us? Call back to remembrance the greatest 


THE CROSS OF JESUS CHRIST. 25 


deeds of antiquity, there is no longer any trace of them in 
existence, and only the old historical books which relate 
them to us bear testimony that they have taken place. But 
it is not so with the atoning death of Christ: this event lives 
in the world. The present condition of the earth gives 
evidence of it. From the blood which flowed down from the 
height of the cross, all the nations have proceeded which | 
have exalted this holy banner upon the earth which they 
rule. Everything in these nations speaks to you of the 
cross. Yes, the cross of Christ is beyond your reach, you 
cannot shatter it. This truth, on which eighteen centuries 
rest, cannot so easily be set aside, as if it were a short-lived 
dogma, which has been formed in the brain of him who 
preaches it. Opposed in all ages, and by all the power of 
men, it has nevertheless permeated all times without having 
been cast down. It has expressed itself by its own power, 
both against unbelief and against superstition. And this 
fact of an offering which once was finished for the sin of all 
is ever present in the world, and proclaimed as the greatest 
act of love to men. 

But could such an act have taken place? What aston- 
ishment does this doctrine cause us! What can we espe- 
cially discover in it, if it is not foolishness? My brethren, 
let us not ask whether such a deed could have been com- 
pleted when we know that it did take place. To investigate 
whether what has actually happened could have taken place 
is a ridiculous play of men of reason; and those must keep 
silence when the cross of the Son of God is spoken of. 
You are astonished, you say. ~ But according to what rules, 
then, should the plummet of your understanding search the 
depths of Deity? If God, in giving life to a plant, does 
something which surprises us, should we think that when He 
reconciles the world to Himself He should do nothing aston- 
ishing? Man is astounded at it, because he has never had 
an idea anything like it. In fine, know that God in this 


26 J. Ho MERLE D’AUBIGNE. 


matter thinks as you do, and that he calls the cross foolsh- 
ness. (1 Cor. i. 21.) But should we not learn from this 
that if we dare to contend with Him, what we called wisdom 
would be proved foolishness, and what we considered fool- 
ishness would be declared wisdom. A little of the foolish- 
ishness of the cross is sufficient to put to shame all our 
philosophy. This cross, which alone reveals all God’s attri- 
butes, and alone satisfies all man’s wants, is the real swm of 
the wisdom of the world. All buildings of human pride are 
thereby one after another annihilated. It-has already ren- 
dered many defenceless, and will not cease to disarm others. 
He who is a stranger to it is mistaken, for a time will come 
when he will be astonished to have passed it by without pay- 
ing attention to it; and when Christ, having spoiled the 
principalities and powers of human wisdom, which still rule 
in the present century, and having made a show of them 
openly, will triumph over them himself in this cross. (Col. 
ii. 15.) 

But if this cross of Christ is not now your glory and your 
wisdom, what are you then? ‘To what religion do you then 
belong? Are you Christians? Christians without the 
cross! What a new Christianity is that, in what school is 
it taught? Verily, you can even learn from unbelievers 


...what you do not seem to know. Go to the children of 


Israel, make your way to a follower of the false prophet ; 
ask one of them what the Christianity is which you profess. 
Certainly he who does not believe, but for that very reason 
is free from prejudice, will tell you. He will say that 
Christians are a people who recognise Jesus of Nazareth 
born at Bethlehem as the only begotten Son of God, and 
believe that the death which He suffered under Pontius 
Pilate is the sacrifice which reconciles the sinful and rebel- 
lious human race to God! Do you then not know your 
religion even so well as those who live without it? They 
abuse this cross of Jesus, they who do not pretend to believe 


THE CROSS OF JESUS CHRIST. oT 


in it; and you who publicly confess it, you are ashamed of 
it, like them! Not to glory in the cross, is not to belong to 
the Christian church. We see in every century all those 
who have followed the steps of St. Paul, and whose names 
are noted down in the Book of Life, glorying in the cross. 
In it the heroes of the Reformation especially gloried, whom 
we honor as our fathers in the faith. God keep you from 
being able to turn away from their example, and from 
glorying in anything else than in the cross of our Lord 
Jesus Christ ! 

Ah, my brethren, shall we say why you do not glory in it 
alone? Because you believe that you do not need it. And 
that is just the last point to which everything comes back. 
We seize with joy a help which we consider necessary, but 
we despise it as soon as we believe that it is unnecessary. 
The cross of Jesus Christ professes to be what alone can 
give eternal salvation; but you believe you are able to 
secure it through yourself. The cross of Jesus Christ pro- ~ 
fesses to be what alone can give holiness; but you imagine 
you are able to attain to it of yourself. What have you 
then still to do with it? If you reject it, that appears to 
me intelligible. The question is just this, Which is right, 
the cross of Jesus Christ which places salvation in itself, or 
_ you who seek it in yourself? This is the question which, if 
not soon decided in your case, that day will answer which 
will determine and reveal all things. 

But you say, perhaps, and certainly there are many who 
can say it: ‘I deny not the cross of Christ.’ Quite true, 
you believe it, but only the half of it. You deny not the 
event, but you shun it. You venture not with a full and 
free faith to persuade yourself that the Son of God was 
fastened on the tree for you; and hence it comes that, in | 
respect of influence on your heart, this event is nothing. 
Ah, cast far away from you this littleness of faith, give up 
this half Christianity which precipitates you into destruc- 


28 J. H. MERLE D’AUBIGNE. 


tion. All Christianity in which the central point is not the 
crucified Messiah, to whom everything runs, and from whom 
everything proceeds, is a false Christianity. Why will you 
not believe as St. Paul believed? The cross of Jesus Christ 
is just as nigh to you as it was to him. I offer you the 
Christ who was crucified for you, just as St. Peter offered 
Him to those who had fastened him on the cross. (Acts iii. 
26). His blood is before your eyes as it was before theirs ; 
you can wash yourself therein from your misdeeds just as 
clean as they could. Oh, what day calls you to this, if the 
present does not? What moment would you choose, if not 
this solemn moment when the Son of God was slain on 
Golgotha for you? 

Yea, Lord and Saviour! I raise myself this hour and 
approach Thy cross! Thou didst bring there an offering 
for me; I come and bring mine to Thee. I come, Lord, 
and strip myself of everything, and declare to Thee that 
there is nothing in the world of which I boast but only the 
cross, on which I see Thee fastened. At Thy feet I cast all 
my pretended greatness; Thy cross eclipses and annihilates 
it. I offer up to Thee all in which I have heretofore glo- 
ried. I tread my righteousness under my feet; because I 
know that what I called my righteousness was nothing but 
unrighteousness. I tread my holiness under my feet; be- 
cause I know that what I called holiness was nothing but 
shame. I tread my meritorious works under: my feet; be- 
cause I know that among them there is not one to be found 
pure, and that those things by which I believed life could be 
merited deserve for me only condemnation. There remains 
for me nothing, O Lord! See me here as Thou wilt have 
me, see me in the dust, see me wretched, poor, blind, and 
naked before Thee. Give me Thy gold, purified in the fire, 
that I may be rich! Give me the white robes of Thy 
righteousness, that I may clothe myself, and that the shame 
of my nakedness may not appear. (Rey, iii, 17, 18.) Oh! 


THE CROSS OF JESUS CHRIST. 29 


Thy cross gives me again all that I have lost, and in a quite 
different degree. For me, my Lord! for me Thou wast fast- 
ened on the cross. Thy blood, which Thou didst shed, is 
my peace; I wash myself therein diligently from all spots ; 
it atones before my Judge for all my offences; it brings me 
nearer to Him again; it unites me with Him afresh; it 
speaks better than the blood of Abel. (Heb. xii. 24.) Thy 
cross becomes my wisdom, my righteousness, my holiness, 
my redemption. Behold, I am now rich, Lord! I have 
found this ground of glorying which will open to me the 
gates of heaven and set me upon an eternal throne. ‘God 
forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord 
Jesus Christ.’ 

Ah! how do all these bonds of unbelief now discover 
themselves to us which century after century have poured 
out their blasphemies against the cross of our Lord Jesus 
Christ! We fear them in no wise. We repeat it, to them: 
it is this cross, this crucified Lord, that we worship, and in 
whom we glory. Ah! wretched and proud world! Ah! 
wisdom, greatness, and folly of this time! We know that 
at the foot of the cross of Jesus Christ thy reproach awaits 
us! But, clothed with this reproach, we despise thy glory, 
we make a mock of thy splendor, and point with the finger 
at thy greatness. We esteem the reproach of Christ greater 
riches than the treasures of Egypt. (Heb. xi. 26.) Every 
word of thy reproach is a title of honor to our glory, and 
crushing under our feet everything that can produce thy 
pride, we still repeat with the apostle: ‘God forbid that we 
should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ !”’ 

I have yet only a word to say to you: Abvzde by this cross. 
You have responded to our voice, you have come and placed 
yourselves at the foot of the cross of Christ; give thanks 
to him who has led you there; but this is still not enough, 
you must not in future leave it; nothing in the world should 
be able to separate you from it. 


30 J. H. MERLE D’AUBIGNE, 


Abide by this cross. Lament there the time of your ig- 
norance; regret with a bitter pain every moment that you 
have lost through not discovering its power and glory. And 
having lived so many years in the world without it and with- 
out God, repeat, in the enjoyment of a present salvation, 
these words of one of His old servants: ‘I have too late 
come to a knowledge of Thee, I have too fa come to love 
Thee.” (Augustine.) 

Abide by this cross, because you find there true greatness; 
sacrifice there all false glory; sacrifice there with joy this 
pride, which is infused into you by the superiority of your 
mind, or the knowledge which distinguishes you, or your 
envied reputation in society, or your worldly calling, or the 
riches that you are in possession of, or your course of life 
which exalts you above others, or the admiration which sur- 
rounds you, this splendor which is extended over you, or by 
the ridiculous praises which are presented to you. How can 
I reckon up all the sources of this childish pride which you 
have to sacrifice before the cross ? 

Abide by this cross. Abide there in_your trials. Take 
comfort ; the cross has rescued you, salvation is procured for 
you, eternal life awaits you; not even all the storms of life 
united can sadden the peace which has been won for you. 
Yes, the view of the punishment which fell upon the Holy 
and Righteous One in your stead, will cause you to find the 
burden which you bear light. Rejoice to be led on the way 
of pain which led Jesus to glory. 

Abide by this cross. And when sin is again stirred up 
in your flesh, when the world begins to entice you, and the 
fiend to spread his nets, when your soul has begun to reel 
like a drunken man, then consider Jesus, in order that the 
view of what he suffered for your sins may fill your soul 
with a holy horror of them, and kindle again in your heart 
the extinguished flames of love. 


THE CROSS OF JESUS CHRIST. 31 


Abide by this cross. And even should everything unite 
against it, yea, should men afresh surround it, blaspheming 
and shaking their heads (Matt. xxvii. 89); then be this your 
glory, boldly to confess this cross before all; “ For whoso- 
ever shall confess Me before men,”’ saith the Lord, “him 
will 1 confess before My Father who is in heaven. But 
whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny 
before My Father who is in heaven.” (Matt. x. 82, 33.) 
The day will come when the veil which still covers it will be 
entirely removed, and when its light and its glory will 
stream forth upon every one who has not been ashamed of it. 

May God give us grace to be confessors of the cross of 
Christ in our lives. May God give us grace to become con- 
fessors of the cross of Christ in our death. “I will not 
blot out his name out of the Book of Life,’’ saith the Lord. 
(Rey. iii. 5.) Amen. 


ma IS 
ALIVE IN GOD. 


ARNOLD. 


[T1romas ARNoLD, D. D., the noble schoolmaster of Rugby for four- 
teen years, was born at Cowes, June 13th 1795. He was educated 
at Oxford, ordained in the Church of England in 1828, and died June 

2th 1842. His character was marked by rare manliness, Christian 

sympathy, and profound scholarship. How he taught his pupils to 
love him, is well told in ‘‘Tom Brown’s School-Days at Rugby.” 
Besides his classical works, he left five volumes of Sermons. Our 
extract is taken from ‘Christian Life.’”’ His thoughts are pure, 
vigorous, and independent. | 


“‘ God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.””—Matt. xxii. 32. 


WE hear these words as a part of our Lord’s answer to 
the Sadducees; and, as their question was put in evident 
profaneness, and the answer to it is one which to our minds 
is quite obvious and natural, so we are apt to think that in 
this particular story there is less than usual that particu- 
larly concerns us. But it so happens, that our Lord, in 
answering the Sadducees, has brought in one of the most 
universal and most solemn of all truths,—which is indeed 
implied in many parts of the Old Testament, but which the 
Gospel has revealed to us in allits fullness,—the truth con- 
tained in the words of the text, that ‘‘God is not the God 
of the dead, but of the living.”’ 

I would wish to unfold a little what is contained in these 
words, which we often hear even, perhaps, without quite 
understanding them; and many times oftener without fully 
entering into them. And we may take them, first, in their 

(32) 


ALIVE IN GOD. 33 


first part, where they say that “‘God is not the God of the 
dead ”’ us ) 

The word “dead,” we know, is constantly used in 
Scripture in a double sense, as meaning those who are dead 
spiritually, as well as those who are dead naturally. And, 
in either sense, the words are alike applicable: ‘ God is not 
the God of the dead.” 

God’s not being the God of the dead signifies two things: 
that they who are without him are dead, as well as that they 
who are dead are also without him. So far‘as our know- 
ledge goes respecting inferior animals, they appear to be 
examples of this truth. They appear to us to have no 
knowledge of God; and we are not told that they have any 
other life than the short one of which our senses inform us. 
I am well aware that our ignorance of their condition is so 
great that we may not dare to say anything of them posi- 
tively ; there may be a hundred things true respecting them 
which we neither know nor imagine. I would only say that, 
according to that most imperfect light in which we see them, 
the two points of which I have been speaking appear to meet 
in them: we believe that they have no consciousness of God, 
and we believe that they will die. And so far, therefore, 
they afford an example of the agreement, if I may so speak, 
between these two points; and were intended, perhaps, to 
‘be to our view a continual image of it. But we had far 
better speak of ourselves. And here, too, it is the case that 
“God is not the God of the dead.” If we are without him 
we are dead; and if we are dead we are without him: in 
other words, the two ideas of death and absence from God 
are in fact synonymous. 

Thus, in the account given of the fall-of man, the sentence 
of death and of being cast out of Eden go together; and if 
any one compares the description of the second Eden in the 
Revelation, and recollects how especially it is there said, 
that God dwells in the midst of it, and is its light by day 

2 c 


34 THOMAS ARNOLD. 


and night, he will see that the banishment from the first 
Eden means a banishment from the presence of God. And 
thus, in the day that Adam sinned, he died; for he was cast 
out of Eden immediately, however long he may have moved 
about afterwards upon the earth where God was not. And 
how very strong to the same point are the words of Hezekiah’s 
prayer, ‘‘The grave cannot praise thee, Death cannot cele- 
brate thee; they that go down into the pit cannot hope for 
thy truth ;’’ words which express completely the feeling that 
God is not the God of the dead. This, too, appears to be 
the sense generally of the expression used in various parts 
of the Old Testament, ‘“‘ Thou shalt surely die.” It is, no 
doubt, left purposely obscure; nor are we ever told, in so 
many words, all that is meant by death; but, surely, it 
always implies a separation from God, and the being—what- 
ever the notion may extend to—the being dead to him. 
Thus, when David had committed his great sin, and had 
expressed his repentance for it, Nathan tells him, ‘“ The 
Lord also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die:” 
which means, most expressively, thou shalt not die to God. 
In one sense, David died, as all men die; nor was he, by 
any means, freed from the punishment of his sin: he was 
not, in that sense, forgiven; but he was allowed still to 
regard God as his God; and, therefore, his punishments 
were but fatherly chastisements from God’s hand, designed 
for his profit, that he might be partaker of God’s holiness. 
And thus although Saul was sentenced to lose his kingdom, 
and although he was killed with his sons on Mount Gilboa, 
yet Ido not think that we find the sentence passed upon 
him, ‘¢ Thou shalt surely die;’” and, therefore, we have no 
right to say that God had ceased to be his God, although 
he visited him with severe chastisements, and would not 
allow him to hand down to his sons the crown of Israel. 
Observe, also, the language of the eighteenth chapter of 
Ezekiel, where the expressions occur so often, ‘“‘ He shall 


ALIVi1 IN GOD. 35 


surely live,” and “ He shall surely die.’”’ We have no right 
to refer these to a mere extension, on the one hand, or a 
cutting short, on the other, of the term of earthly existence. 
The promise of living long in the land, or, as in Hezekiah’s 
case, of adding to his days fifteen years, is very different from 
the full and unreserved blessing, “‘ Thou shalt surely live.” 
And we know, undoubtedly, that both the good and the bad to 
whom Ezekiel spoke, died alike the natural death of the 
body. But the peculiar force of the promise, and of the 
threat, was, in the one case, Thou shalt belong to God; in 
the other, Thou shalt cease to belong to him; although the 
veil was not yet drawn up which concealed the full import 
of those terms, ‘belonging to God,” and “ ceasing to belong 
to him:” nay, can we venture to affirm that it is fully 
drawn aside even now ? ‘ 

I have dwelt on this at some length, because it really 
seems to place the common state of the minds of too many 
‘amongst us in a light which is exceedingly awful; for if it 
be true, as I think the Scripture implies, that to be dead, 
and to be without God, are precisely the same thing, then 
can it be denied, that the symptoms of death are strongly 
marked upon many of us? Are there not many who never 
think of God, or care about his service? Are there not 
_ many who live, to all appearance, as unconscious of his 

_ existence as we fancy the inferior animals to be? And is 
it not quite clear, that to such persons, God cannot be said 
to be their God? He may be the God of heaven and earth, 
the God of the universe, the God of Christ’s church; but 
he is not their God, for they feel to have nothing at all to 
do with him; and, therefore, as he is not their God, they 
are, and must be, according to the- Scripture, reckoned 
among the dead. 

But God is the God “of the living.” That is, as before, 
all who are alive, live unto him; all who live unto him, are 


alive. ‘God said, I am the God of Abraham, and the God 


36 THOMAS ARNOLD. 


_ of Isaac, and the God of Jacob;” and, therefore, says our 
Lord, ‘‘ Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, are not and cannot 
be dead.” They cannot be dead, because God owns them: 
he is not ashamed to be called their God; therefore, they 
are not cast out from him; therefore, by necessity, they 
live. Wonderful, indeed, is the truth here implied, in exact 
agreement, as we have seen, with the general language of 
Scripture; that, as she who but touched the hem of Christ’s 
garment was, in a moment, relieved from her infirmity, so 
great was the virtue which went out from him ; so they who 
are not cast out from God, but have anything whatever to 
do with him, feel the virtue of his gracious presence pene- 
trating their whole nature; because he lives, they must 
live also. | 

Behold, then, life and death set before us; not remote 
(if a few years be, indeed, to be called remote), but even 
now present before us; even now suffered or enjoyed. Hven 
now, we are alive unto God, or dead unto God; and, as we are 
either the one or the other, so we are, in the highest possible 
sense of the terms, alive or dead. In the highest possible 
sense of the terms; but who can tell what that highest pos- 
sible sense of the terms is? So much has, indeed, been 
revealed to us, that we know now that death means a con- 
scious and perpetual death, as life means a conscious and 
perpetual life. But greatly, indeed, do we deceive ourselves, 
if we fancy that, by having thus much told us, we have also 
risen to the infinite heights, or descended to the infinite 
depths, contained in those little words, life and death. They 
are far higher, and far deeper, than ever thought or fancy 
of man has reached to. But, even on the first edge of either, 
at the visible beginnings of that infinite ascent or descent, 
there is surely something which may give us a foretaste of 
what is beyond. Even to us in this mortal state, even to you 
advanced but so short a way on your very earthly journey, 


ALIVE IN GOD. 37 


life and death have a meaning: to be dead unto God, or to 
be alive to him, are things perceptibly different. 

For, let me ask of those who think least of God, who are 
most separate from him, and most without him, whether 
there is not now actually, perceptibly, in their state, some- 
thing of the coldness, the loneliness, the fearfulness of 
death? I do not ask them whether they are made unhappy 
by the fear of God’s anger; of course they are not: for 
they who fear God are not dead to him, nor he to them. 
The thought of him gives them no disquiet at all; this is 
the very point we start from. But I would ask them whether 
they know what is to feel God’s blessing. For instance: 
we all of us have our troubles of some sort or other, our 
disappointments, if not our sorrows. In these troubles, in 
these disappointments,—I care not how small they may be, 
—have they known what it is to feel that God’s hand is over 
them; that these little annoyances are but his fatherly cor- 
rection; that he is all the time loving us, and supporting 
us? In seasons of joy, such as they taste very often, have 
they known what it is to feel that they are tasting the kind- 
ness of their heavenly Father, that their good things come 
from his hand, and are but an infinitely slight foretaste of 
his love? Sickness, danger,—I know that they come to 
many of us but rarely; but if we have known them, or at 
least sickness,.even in its lighter form, if not in its graver, 
—have we felt what it is to know that we are in our Father’s 
hands, that he is with us, and will be with us to the end; 
that nothing can hurt those whom he loves? Surely, then, 
if we have never tasted anything of this: if in trouble, or in 
joy, or in sickness, we are left wholly to ourselves, to bear 
as we can, and enjoy as we can; if there is no voice that 
ever speaks out of the heights and the depths around us, to 
give any answer to our own; if we are thus left to ourselves 
in this vast world,—there is in this a coldness and a lone- 
liness; and whenever we come to be, of necessity, driven to 


38 THOMAS ARNOLD. 


be with our own hearts alone, the coldness and the loneliness 
must be felt. But consider that the things which we see 
around us cannot remain with us, nor we with them. The 
coldness and loneliness of the world, without God, must be 
felt more and more as life wears on: in every change of our 
own state, in every separation from or loss of a friend, in 
every more sensible weakness of our own bodies, in every 
additional experience of the uncertainty of our own counsels, 
—the deathlike feeling will come upon us more and more 
strongly: we shall gain more of that fearful knowledge 
which tells us that ‘‘ God is not the God of the dead.” 

And so, also, the blessed knowledge that he is the God 
‘‘ of the living” grows upon those who are truly alive. Surely 
he ‘is not far from every one of us.” No occasion of life 
fails to remind those who live unto him, that he is their God, 
and that they are his children. Qn light occasions or on 
grave ones, in sorrow and in joy, still the warmth of his 
love is spread, as it were, all through the atmosphere of their 
lives: they for ever feel his blessing. And if it fills them 
with joy unspeakable even now, when they so often feel how 
little they deserve it; if they delight still in being with God, 
and in living to him, let them be sure that they have in them- 
selves the unerring witness of life eternal :—God is the God 
of the living, and all who are with him must live. 

Hard it is, I well know, to bring this home, in any degree, 
to the minds of those who are dead: for it is of the very 
nature of the dead that they can hear no words of life. Bui 
it has happened that, even whilst writing what I have just 
been uttering to you, the news reached me that one, who 
two months ago was one of your number, who this very half- 
year has shared in all the business and amusements of this 
place, is passed already into that state where the meanings 
of the terms life and death are become fully revealed. He 
knows what it is to live unto God, and what it is to die to 
him. Those things which are to us unfathomable mysteries, 


ALIVE EN GOD, 39 


are to him all plain: and yet but two months ago he might 
have thought himself as far from attaining this knowledge 
as any of uscando. Wherefore it is clear, that these things, 
life and death, may hurry their lesson upon us sooner than 
we deem of, sooner than we are prepared to receive it. 
And that were indeed awful, if, being dead to God, and yet 
little feeling it, because of the enjoyments of our worldly 
life, those enjoyments were on a sudden to be struck away 
from us, and we should find then that to be dead to God was 
death indeed, a death from which there is no waking, and in 
which there is no sleeping for ever. 


1 bb 
THE BLESSINGS OF A BENIGNANT SPIRIT. 


BARNES. 


[ALBERT Barnes was born near Rome, New York, December 1st 
1798,.and died in West Philadelphia, December 24th 1870. He was 
a graduate of Hamilton College and Princeton Theological Seminary. 
After a pastoral charge of five years in Morristown, New Jersey, he 
was installed in the First Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia, in 1830. 
Here he actively ministered thirty-seven years, when failing eye-sight 
compelled him to become Emeritus Pastor. For conscience’ sake, 
Rev. Mr. Barnes repeatedly declined the well-earned title of Doctor 
of Divinity. By dint of utilizing the spare hours before 9 a. m., he 
composed twenty thoughtful volumes on religious and theological sub- 
jects. Chief among these were his Notes, on the New Testament, Isaiah, 
Daniel, and Psalms, whose circulation before his death reached a mil- 
lion volumes. His writings are clear, incisive, and plain, richer in 
matter and method than style. The following discourse is taken, by 
permission, from his excellent “‘ Practical Sermons,” now out of print. | 


“ Put on, therefore, as the elect of God—kindness.”—Col. iii. 12. 


WuatT an invaluable blessing is a kind and benignant 
spirit! How invaluable to an individual, in a family, in a 
church, in any community! It is a spirit which the gospel 
is adapted to produce; which serves much to remove the as- 
perities which are met with in life; which contributes to 
happiness everywhere. My wish, at this time, is to illus- 
trate its nature and importance; and I shall show, 

I. In what it consists; and 

II. Its value. | 


I. Kindness, or a benignant spirit, consists in the follow- 
ing things. 
(40) 


BLESSINGS OF A BENIGNANT SPIRIT. 41 


(1.) In a disposition to be pleased—a willingness to be 
satisfied with the conduct of others towards us. This dispo- 
sition lies back of all external actions, and refers to the 
general habit of feeling. It is not that which is created by 
any sudden impression made on us, or by receiving from 
others any proofs of favor; it is a previous disposition ra- 
ther to be satisfied than dissatisfied; rather to look on the 
favorable than the unfavorable side in the conduct of others ; 
rather to suppose that they are right than to suppose that 
they are wrong; and rather to attribute to them good mo- 
tives than bad motives. It is such a disposition that if we 
ever think unfavorably of others, it is because we are com- 
pelled to do it rather than because we wish to do it; such 
that any moment we would be willing to listen to any ex- 
planation in extenuation of their conduct. 

This disposition contributes much towards our being ac- 
tually pleased. It is usually not difficult to find enough in 
others that we can approve to make life pleasant and har- 
monious when we are disposed to; and this disposition will 
do more than all other things to make social life move on 
with comfort and with joy. This disposition stands opposed 
to a spirit of fault-finding and complaining ; a temper which 
nothing satisfies, and which nothing pleases; a propensity 
to magnify trifles and never to forget them; and a turn of 
mind that is irritable, and that is constantly chafed and fret- 
ted. For this latter state of mind we are now much in the habit 
of blaming the nervous system, and there can be no doubt 
that from the intimate connection between the mind and the 
body, a disordered nervous system-may have much to do 
with such a temperament. But it may be also true that the 
body is often blamed when the soul should be, and that the 
responsibility is often improperly changed from the heart to 
the nervous system. More frequently this disposition is to 
be traced to long habits of indulgence; to mortified pride ; 
to an overweening self-valuation; to the fact that the respect 


42 ALBERT BARNES. | 


is not paid us which we think we deserve; to the fact that 
the heart is wrong, and the will obstinate and unsubdued. 
The spirit of the gospel of Christ would do more to eradicate 
this evil disposition than any physical applications to the 
nervous system, and it is the heart’ rather than the bodily 
health that demands appropriate treatment. A man who is 
willing to be pleased and gratified will in general pass plea- 
santly through life. He who is willing to take his proper 
place in society, content with the small share of public 
notice which properly belongs to an individual, and beliey- 
ing it to be possible that others may be as likely to be right 
in their opinions as he is, will usually find the journey of 
life to be a pleasant way, and will not have much occasion 
to be dissatisfied with the world at large. 

(2.) A spirit of kindness or benignity consists in a disposi- 
tion to attribute to others the possession of good motives 
when it can be done. One of the rights of every man in 
society is, to have it supposed that he acts with good inten- 
tions unless he furnishes irrefragable proof to the contrary. 
This right is quite as valuable as the right to “life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness’ —and is essential to them all. 
He may do me a more palpable and lasting wrong who as- 
cribes to me a bad motive, than he does who takes my purse ; 
and he has no more right to do the one than the other. 
Now there are many actions performed which may be 
either from a good or bad motive. There are many where 
the action may be attended with injurious consequences 
when the motive is good. There are many where the motive 
may be for a long time concealed; where we may not be 
permitted to understand why it was done ; and where it may 
seem to have been originated from the worst possible inten- 
tion. In all such cases, it is our duty to suppose that the 
motive was good until the contrary becomes so clear that it 
can no longer be doubted. Where an action may be per- 
formed from either a good or a bad intention, it is a mere 


BLESSINGS OF A BENIGNANT SPIRIT. 43 


act of justice that we should attribute the correct and noble 
motive in the case rather than evil one—or at least that we 
should not assume that the motive was bad—for “love re- 
joiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth 
all things; believeth all things; hopeth all things; endureth 
all things; AND NEVER FAILETH.” 1 Cor. xiii. 6, 7, 8. 
Yet there are some persons who seem never to have heard 
of this rule. The worst possible motive is at once suspected. 
The worst construction is given to an action. In the view 
of such persons every circumstance combines to lead to the 
conclusion that the motive was a bad one. Such persons, 
too, will have that unhappy species of memory which recol- 
lects all the z// of another, and forgets all the good; and 
when an action is performed of doubtful character, it is sur- 
prising what a number of similar deeds will be found to have 
been treasured up in the memory, all going to confirm the 
suspicion that the motive was a bad one. Now a spirit of 
benignity and kindness will lead us to pursue directly the 
contrary course. The first impression on such a mind will 
be, that the action was performed from a good motive. That 
impression will be retained until there is positive proof to 
the contrary ; and will bé confirmed by the recollections of 
the former life. The good will have been remembered; the 
evil will have been forgiven and forgotten. Past deeds of 
-unkindness towards you will be found to have been written 
in sand which the next wave washed away; deeds of benefi- 
cence will be found to have been engraved on marble or 
steel. A kind memory has treasured up all the favors ever 
shown you—and now they come flocking to your recollec- 
tion, and help to throw the mantle of charity over the act 
now even if it be wrong. 

(3.) A spirit of benignity or kindness consists in bearing 
with the foibles, infirmities, and faults of others. We do not 
go a great distance with any fellow-traveller on the journey 
of life, before we find that he is far from our notions of per- 


44 ALBERT BARNES. 


fection. He has a temperament different from our own 
He may be sanguine, or choleric, or melancholy in his tem- 
perament, while we are just the reverse. He has peculiari- 
ties of taste, and habit, and disposition, which differ much 
from our own. He has his own plans and purposes in life; 
and like ourselves he does not like to be crossed or embar- 
rassed. He has his own way and time of doing things; his 
own manner of expression; his own modes of speech. He 
has grown up under other influences than those which have 
affected our minds; and his habits of feeling may be regu- 
lated by his education, and by his calling in life. Neighbors 
have occasion to remark this in their neighbors; friends in 
their friends; kindred in their kindred. In proportion 
as the relations of life become more intimate, the more 
these peculiarities become visible; and hence the more 
intimate we become, the more necessity there is for bearing 
patiently with the frailties and foibles of others. In the 
most tender connections, like that between a husband and 
wife; a parent and child; a brother and sister, it may re- 
quire much of a gentle and yielding spirit to adapt ourselves 
to their peculiarities so that life shall move on smoothly and 
harmoniously. When there is a disposition to do this, we 
soon learn to bear and forbear. We understand how to 
avoid the look, the gesture, the allusion, the remark that 
would excite improperly the mind of our friend. We dwell 
on those points where there is sympathy and harmony; and 
we thus remove the asperities of character, and the feelings 
and affections meet and mingle together.. With any one of 
our friends there may be enough, if excited, to make life 
with him uncomfortable. A husband and wife—such is the 
imperfection of human nature—can find, if they will, enough 
in each other to embitter life, if they choose to magnify foi- 
bles, and to become irritated at imperfections; and there is 
no friendship which may not be marred in this way if we 
will suffer it. The virtues of life are tender plants. Love 


BLESSINGS OF A BENIGNANT SPIRIT. 45 


is most delicate in its texture, and may not be rudely han- 
dled. ‘To be preserved, we must cease to expect perfection. 
We must be prepared for little differences of opinion, and 
varieties of temperament. We must indulge the friend that 
we love, in the little peculiarities of saying and doing things 
which may be so important to him, but which can be of so 
little moment to us. Like children, we must suffer each 
other to build his own play-house in his own way, and not 
quarrel with him because he does not think our way the 
best. If we have a spirit of kindness, we shall cease to 
look for perfection in any others; and this is much in pro- 
moting our own happiness in any relation of life. It will 
make us indulgent, and forgiving, and tender. Conscious 
of our own imperfection, we shall not harshly blame others; 
sensible how much we need indulgence, we shall not with- 
hold it from them; feeling deeply how much our happiness 
depends on their being kind toward our frailties and. foibles, 
we shall not be unwilling to evince the same indulgence to- 
wards them. 

(4.) A kind and benignant spirit is shown by our not 
blaming others with undue harshness when they fall into sin. 
In no circumstances does frail human nature need more of 
the kindness of charity and forgiveness—nowhere usually 
is less benignity shown. We weep with the father who has 
lost his only son; we sympathize with the man who has lost 
his all in a storm at sea; we compassionate him who is de- 
prived of the organs of vision or of hearing, to whom the 
world is always dark, or who is a stranger to the sweet voice 
of wife or child, or to the soul-stirring harmony of. music. 
But when a man is overtaken by a fault, all our sympathies 
at once usually die. We feel that he has cut all the chords 
that bound him to the living and the social world, and that 
henceforth he is to be treated as an alien and an outcast. 
We exclude him from our social circles. We strip him of 
office. We bind and incarcerate him. We place him in a 


46 ALBERT BARNES. 


dark, damp, cold dungeon. We feed him on coarse fare. We 
separate him from wife, and children, and home, and books 
and friends. To a certain extent all this is inevitable and pro- 
per. We owe it to ourselves; we owe it to the community. 
But we need not withhold our kindness from an offending 
brother. We need not withdraw all the expressions of be- 
nignant feeling. ‘ Brethren,” says Paul, “if a man be 
overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual restore such an > 
one in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself, lest thou 
also be tempted.” Gal. vi. 1. ‘Love suffereth long and 
is kind; love is not easily provoked; thinketh no evil; be- 
lieveth all things; hopeth all things.” Let the following 
things be remembered when a brother is accused of a fault. 
(1.) He is a brother still. He has the same corrupt, fallen, 
ruined nature that we have—and originally no worse. “‘ John 
Bunyan, but by the grace of God,” was the honest expression 
of the author of the Pilgrim’s Progress, when he saw a poor 
victim of profaneness and intemperance. That erring, 
guilty, and wretched man—that man of guilt, and profane- 
ness, and crime, is thy brother. You and he had the same 
father. The same blood flows in your veins and his. That 
wretched female—that frail and guilty woman—is thy sister. 
You had a common, erring mother: She once had sympa- 
thies like thine own. She had a heart that could love and 
be loved, like thine. She once had a mother that loved her as 
thine loved thee. She once was playful, and blithe, and 
happy, when a child—and perchance beautiful and accom- 
plished, as others are. Fallen, and ruined, and guilty as 
she may be, she is not beyond the possibility of being 
saved; she is not beyond the reach of prayer. For the 
soul of that same guilty and erring daughter of vice, the 
Saviour’s blood was shed as well as for thine own; and the 
‘kindness and love of God our Saviour’ may yet recover 
even her, and make her a companion with thyself in glory. 
Remember (2.) that when another seems to fall into sin, if 


BLESSINGS OF A BENIGNANT SPIRIT. 47 


you understood all the circumstances of the case, its aspect 
might be greatly changed. “Judge not, that ye be not 
judged; condemn not, that ye be not condemned,”’ was the 
command of the Master. Luke vi. 387. ‘ Above all things 
have fervent charity among yourselves; for charity shall 
cover the multitude of sins.” 1 Pet. iv. 8. Remember (38.) 
that when a brother seems to err or fall, it is possible that 
‘an explanation may remove all the difficulty. Give him 
that opportunity. It is due to him. Appearances, which 
he could not control, may have been sadly against him; and 
malignant enemies may have helped the matter on. It is 
due to him to allow him a full opportunity to explain all. A 
kind spirit would make you ready to listen; and the same 
spirit, when he has confessed his error—if he has done 
wrong—would lead you to say, ‘‘ My brother, I forgive you. 
The offence shall be remembered no more. I will forgive you 
as Christ hath forgiven me. Your fault shall not be alluded to 
in our intercourse; it-shall not be allowed to make me 
unkind, or suspicious; and I will never refer to it to harrow 
up your feelings, or to suffuse your cheeks with shame. So 
Christ hath forgiven me; so I forgive you.” (5.) A kind 
and benignant spirit is that which prompts us to aid others 
-when in our power. it wishes well to the stranger; to the 
wayfaring man; to the fatherless; to the poor; to the pri- 
soner; to the oppressed. It looks rather on considerations 
why they should be aided than on those why they should not 
be; and asks the question, not how much we must do for 
them, but how much we may do. On the man who has 
failed in business honorably to himself, or without dishonor, 
it looks with benignity, and asks in what. way he may be as- 
sisted, and not how his fall may be accelerated. The poor 
man atthe door it meets with the inquiry whether he may 
be assisted consistently with other duties and obligations. 
For the man in oppression, it seeks relief when it can be 
done, and prompts to measures to secure it. When relief is 


48 ALBERT BARNES. 


almost hopeless, still it looks benignantly towards the suf- 
ferer, and is willing to listen to any suggestions for his aid. 
It does not lead us at once to sit down as if nothing can be 
done—appalled by the magnitude of the evil, or indifferent 
to it; nor does it lead us to favor the opinion that all at- 
tempts at relief are improper, or to be abandoned. 

I may add, on this point, that where relief cannot be 
afforded, it should be declined with a gentle and benevolent 
heart. It often happens, from the necessity of the case, 
that we must decline aid to the poor, to the needy, to the 
stranger, and to the cause of humanity and religion at large. 
Circumstances put it out of our power to assist them. But 
it mitigates the evil if benevolence beams in the eye, and 
gentleness and love dictate the terms by which it is done. 
It may become pleasant even to have an application re- 
jected. It may be done with so much good will and sin- 
cerity ; where it is so.evident that the heart is in it; where 
there is such a manifest wish that the circumstances were dif- 
ferent, that the pain of the refusal shall all be taken away, 
and good shall be done to the soul even where the aid sought 
for the body could not be granted. We are often troubled 
by applications for aid—I say troubled, from their fre- 
quency, and because we allow them to trouble us. We are 
liable to constant solicitations of this sort—solicitations all 
of which we cannot comply with. It can neither be right 
for us, nor would it be possible for us to comply with them 
all. Part of those who apply to us for assistance we know; 
part are strangers whom we may never see again. Yet we 
are to remember that most of them are children of misfor- 
tune. Many of them have by nature sensibilities as keen as 
we ourselves, and they will feel a cold look and a stern re- 
pulse as much as we. We are to remember, too, that not a 
few of them suffer more from the necessity of asking assist- 
ance than from almost any other ill of life. Long will a 
widowed mother suffer from poverty and want, before she 


BLESSINGS OF A BENIGNANT SPIRIT. 49 


will go to the stranger to seek assistance. Long would she 
suffer still rather than do it, but it is not her own sufferings 
that prompt her to it;—it is the cry of her children for 
bread, the desolation of her home without fuel, and without 
food, and without work, that compels her to subdue her 
strong reluctance to solicit charity, and she does this under 
a depth of mingled, agitated emotions which the affluent 
never know. If to all this there is now to be added the cool 
repulse; the harsh, forbidding look; the refusal even to hear 
the simple story of her sufferings, and the sufferings of her 
children, and if she is to return and say to them that no- 
thing can be obtained for them—and to see them weep and 
suffer the more by disappointment, you infuse the bitterest 
dreg into her cup of woes. Christian kindness would have 
mitigated all; Christian kindness might have prompted to 
that little aid from your superabundant wealth, which not 
being missed in your dwelling, would have made hers to her 
like Eden. The same thing is true when help is asked for 
any object of beneficence. The man who asks your aid to 
relieve a people suffering the evils of famine; or to help a 
family whose all has been consumed by fire; or to liberate 
a slave from bondage; or to enable a man to purchase his 
wife or children in order that they all may be free together ; 
or to send the preached gospel to the heathen world, has a 
right to a kind reception. On his part it is a work of bene- 
volence, in which he is usually no more interested than we 
are—and in doing it he may have overcome much reluctant 
feeling, and sacrificed many comforts, from the strong con- 
viction of duty. He has a right to expect, where aid can< 
not be granted for his object, that his feelings shall not be 
harrowed up by an uncivil and cold reception. If aid is de- 
clined, he has a right to expect that it should be in gentle- 
ness and love—so declined that it may be pleasant for him 
and for you to meet when your circumstances shall be 
better. 
D 


50 ALBERT BARNES. 


(6.) Once more. A kind spirit should be shown toward 
those who are applied to for aid, and who decline to assist 
us. Here, I fear, we walk sometimes not charitably toward 
others. We apply to them for assistance, and are refused. 
How natural to feel that there was something unkind in it! 
Especially is this so, if we see him to whom we apply live 
in a splendid house, and surrounded with the means of 
luxury ; or if we find him engaged iv a large business; or 
if we see him rolling along in his carriage. And it may be 
difficult to avoid the conviction that he might easily have 
assisted us, and that he is a man of a narrow and parsimo- 
nious spirit. I admit, too, that in not a few instances this 
irresistible conviction may be well founded; and I admit, 
too, that there is always an inconsistency—a painful, and I 
believe a guilty inconsistency—where this style of living is 
maintained, and where the hand is systematically closed 
against the objects of Christian benevolence. But there is 
often much that may be said that would mitigate the 
harshness of your judgment. You see one sidé. But you 
may not know how much he is embarrassed in business; or 
how much he secretly gives away to other objects; or how 
many poor relations he may have dependent on him; or how 
imperative may be the demand on him just now to meet 
pressing obligations. For one, I am endeavoring to learn 
to exercise more charity for those who seem to me to be 
able, and who fall below the standard in benevolence which 
I should regard as the true one. I think on two things: 
first, that I do not know all the circumstances in the case; 
and second, that to his own master each one standeth or 
falleth. It is Azs business, not mine. I can insist only as 
aright that he should show ‘‘ kindness’’—whether he give 
or withhold. In other things he must act as he shall 
answer it to God. Such are some of the things involved in 
kindness—a disposition to be pleased—a readiness to impute 
‘good motives—a patient bearing with the faults and foibles 


BLESSINGS OF A BENIGNANT SPIRIT. 51 


of others—a disposition not to blame them harshly when 
they fall—a readiness to aid, and kindness when aid cannot 
be rendered—and a charitable spirit toward those who re- 
fuse to aid us when we apply to them. Let us, 

II. In the second place, consider the value of this spirit. 
A few remarks will be all; and with these I shall close. In 
illustrating this, I observe, 

(1.) That much of the comfort of iife depends on it. Life 
is made up of little things that are constantly occurring, but 
which if disarranged or displaced render us miserable. 
Breathing is in itself a small matter, and ordinarily scarcely 
noticed; the beating of the heart, and the gentle flowing of 
the blood, are in themselves small matters, and it is only 
when they are deranged or laborious that we become sensi- 
ble of their importance. So in morals and in social inter- 
course. The happiness of life depends not so much on great 
and illustrious deeds; not so much on glory in the field of 
battle, or splendid talents, or brilliant eloquence, or the 
stern virtues that shine in daring achievements, as in the 
quiet duties that are constantly occurring. It is in the kind 
look; the gentle spirit; the peaceful, calm, contented disposi- 
tion ; the cheerful answer ; the unaffected and unobtrusive in- 
terest in the welfare of others; the mild eye and the smooth 
brow which show that the heart is full of love. When these 
are what they should be, they are to social intercourse what 
unobstructed breathing, and the healthful flow of blood along 
the numerous arteries and veins of the body are to the vigor 
and comfort of the bodily system. Life cannot be happy, 
if it can be prolonged, without them; and when these things 
do not exist, comfort dies. 

(2.) Usefulness depends on this no less than happiness. 
A man’s usefulness in the Christian life depends far more 
on the kindness of his daily temper, than on great and_ glo- 
rious deeds that shall attract the admiration of the world, 
and that shall send his name down to future times. It is 


52 ALBERT BARNES. 


the little rivulet that glides through the meadow, and that 
runs along day and night by the farm-house, that is useful, 
rather than the swollen flood, or the noisy cataract. Nia- 
gara excites our wonder, and fills the mind with’ amazement 
and awe. We feel that God is there; and it is well to go 
far to see once, at least, how solemn it is to realize that we 
are in the presence of the Great God, and to see what won- 
ders his hand can do. But one Niagara is enough for a 
continent—or a world; while that same world needs thousands 
and tens of thousands of silvery fountains, and gently flowing 
rivulets, that shall water every farm, and every meadow, and 
every garden, and that shall flow on every day and every night 
with their gentle and quiet beauty. So with life. We admire 
the great deeds of Howard’s benevolence, and-wish that all 
men were like him. We revere the names of the illustrious 
- martyrs. We honor the man who will throw himself in the 
“imminent deadly breach,’ and save his country—and such 
men and such deeds we must have when the occasion calls 
for them. But all men are not to be useful in this way— 
any more than all waters are to rush by us in swelling and 
angry floods. We are to be useful in more limited spheres. 
We are to cultivate the gentle charities of life. We are by 
a consistent walk to benefit those around us—though in a 
humble vale, and though like the gentle rivulet we may at- 
tract little attention, and may soon cease to be remembered 
on earth. Kindness will always do good. It makes others 
happy—and that is doing good. It prompts us to seek to 
benefit others—and that is doing good. It makes others 
gentle, and benignant—and that is doing good. 

Let it be remembered, also, that it is by the temper, and 
by the spirit that we manifest, that the world forms its opin- 
ion of the nature of religion. It is not by great deeds in 
trying circumstances that men will judge of the nature of 
the gospel. The world at large cares little how Ignatius 
and Polycarp felt, or how they died. Perhaps the mass of 


BLESSINGS OF A BENIGNANT SPIRIT. 53 


those around you never heard their names. They are little 
impressed by the virtues which Latimer, and Ridley, and 
Cranmer evinced at the stake. But that unbelieving hus- 
band cares much for the gentle and kind spirit of the wife— 
for all his happiness depends on it; that brother is inter- 
ested much in the conversation and the spirit of his sister— 
for he daily observes her temper, and is forming his views 
of religion from what he sees in her; that child is con- 
stantly marking the temper of the father and the mother, 
and is forming his views of religion not so much from what 
he hears in the pulpit, or in the Sabbath-school, as from the 
temper which you evince from one day to another. In these 
fields—humble though they may seem, and little as they may 
appear to furnish a theatre for the display of eminent vir- 
tues—your usefulness lies. There, with the “ gentleness ”’ 
that was in Christ you cannot but be useful; and exhibiting 
such a spirit, you will not live in vain. 

Let it be remembered, also, that all usefulness may be 
prevented by an unkind, a sour, a crabbed temper of mind. 
A spirit of constant fault-finding; a harsh-judging temper ; 
a constant irritability ; little inequalities and perversenesses 
in the look, and air, and manner of a wife, whose brow is 
cloudy and dissatisfied her husband cannot tell why; or of 
a husband chafed, and fretted, and morose when he returns 
home from his daily toil, and who is satisfied with nothing, 
will more than neutralize all the good you can do, and ren- 
der your life anything but a blessing. Some come into the 
church cursed by the fall with such a crabbedness of temper. 
Some have an unmanageable and perverse nervous tempera- 
ment. Some are proud, and envious, and disappointed, and 
ambitious, and all these things are constantly breaking out 
in their professedly religious life; and even amidst much 
that is excellent, these passions are so constantly showing 
themselves that no one can tell whether there is at heart any 
true religion. Now you may give money for benevolent 


54 ALBERT BARNES. 


objects, but it will not prevent the injury which will be done 
by such an unhappy temperament. You may build churches, 
and found schools and asylums; you may have “the gift of 
prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge ; 
and you may bestow all your goods to feed the poor, and 
give your body to be burned,” and all will not answer the 
purpose. It will all be like ‘‘ sounding brass or a tinkling 
cymbal.’’ Nothing will be a compensation for that ‘love 
which suffers long and is KIND:—that love which envieth 
not, which is not soon provoked, which thinketh no evil, 
which beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all 
things, endureth all things, and which NEVER FAILETH.” 
(8.) And finally, this virtue is commended to us by the 
example of the Master—the Lord Jesus. ‘‘I beseech you,” 
says Paul, ‘“‘by the meekness and gentleness of Christ.” (2 
Cor. x. 1.) What an expression! THE GENTLENESS OF 
Curist! How much is there in that short sentence! How 
much to admire; how much'to imitate! Christ performed 
great deeds—such as no other one ever did; but not that we 
should imitate them. He spake to the tempest, and stilled 
the rolling billows—but not that we should lift up our voices 
when the wind blows, and the thunders roll, and the waves 
are piled mountain high, and attempt to hush them to peace. 
He stood by the grave and spake, and the dead man left his 
tomb, and came forth to life-—-but not that we should place 
ourselves by the graves of the dead and attempt to restore 
them to life. He opened the eyes of the blind, and taught 
the lame man to leap as an hart, and the tongue of the 
dumb to sing——but not that we should imitate him in this, or 
attempt by miracle to give vigor to the feeble, or health to 
the diseased. But Christ was meek and gentle, that we 
might be so too. Christ was benignant and kind, that we 
might be too. Christ patiently bore reviling that we might 
do it also; he was not irritable, and uncharitable, and fretful, 


BLESSINGS OF A BENIGNANT SPIRIT. 55 


and envious, and revengeful—and in all these we may 
imitate him. His was a life.of benevolence, diffusive like 
the light of a morning without clouds; a life undisturbed by 
conflicting emotions; unbroken by a harsh and dissatisfied 
temper; kind when others were unkind; gentle when the 
storms of furious passions raged in their bosoms; and tran- 
quil and serene while all around him were distracted by 
anger, and ambition, and envy, and revenge. ‘To us may 
the same spirit be given; and while the world around us is 
agitated with passion, and pride, and wrath, in our hearts 
may there reign evermore “the gentleness of Christ.” 
Amen. 


IV. 
THE HEAVENLY FOOTMAN. 


BUNYAN. 

[Joun Bunyan, the ‘Shakspeare of Divines,’’ was born the son 
of a travelling tinker, at Elstow, Bedfordshire, in 1628. He was 
ignorant and dissipated till after his marriage, at the age of nineteen. 
In 1655 he became a Baptist preacher, and his zealous labors led, five 
years later, to his imprisonment in Bedford jail with other dissenters. 
‘Here,’ states Dr. Barlow, “with only two books—the Bible and 
Fox’s Book of Martyrs—he employed his time for twelve years and 
a half, in preaching to, and praying with, his fellow-prisoners, in 
writing several of his works (‘ Pilgrim’s Progress,’ ete.,) and in mak- 
ing tagged lace for the support of himself and family.” After his 
release in 1672, he evangelized his brethren throughout England till 
his death at Snowhill, August 3lst 1688. His imagination was 
strong and creative, his spirit earnest and profoundly religious ; hence 
his masterpieces are his spiritual allegories. ‘The Holy War’ de- 
serves to be more read than it is, as well as this excellent metaphorical 
sermon, scarcely known to modern readers. Its sub-title is, “A 
Description of the Man that gets to Heaven.” Owing to its length, a 
minor part has been omitted.] 


“ So run that ye may obtain.”’—1 Cor. ix. 24, 


HEAVEN and happiness is that which every one desireth, 
insomuch that wicked Balaam could say, ‘‘ Let me die the 
death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his.” 
Yet, for all this, there are but very few that do obtain that 
ever-to-be-desired glory, insomuch that many eminent pro- 
fessors drop short of a welcome from God into this pleasant 
place. ‘The apostle, therefore, because he did desire the 
salvation of the souls of the Corinthians, to whom he writes 
this epistle, layeth them down in these words such counsel 
which, if taken, would be for their help and advantage. 

First. Not to be wicked, and sit still, and wish for heaven; 


but to run for it. 
(56) 


THE HEAVENLY FOOTMAN. 57 


Secondly. Not to content themselves with every kind of 
running, but, saith he, “So run that ye may obtain.” As 
if he should say, some, because they would not lose their 
souls, they begin to run betimes, they run apace, they run 
with patience, they run the right way. Do you so run. 
Some run from both father and mother, friends and com- 
panions, and thus, that they may have the crown. Do you 
so run. Some run through temptations, afflictions, good 
report, evil report, that they may win the pearl. Do you 
sorun. ‘So run that ye may obtain.” 

These words they are taken from men’s running for a 
wager: a very apt similitude to set before the eyes of the 
saints of the Lord. ‘Know you not that they which run 
in a race run all, but one obtains the prize? So run that 
ye may obtain.” That is, do not only run, but be sure you 
win as well asrun. ‘So run that ye may obtain.”’ 

I shall not need to make any great ado in opening the 
words at this time, but shall rather lay down one doctrine 
that I do find in them; and in prosecuting that, I shall show 
you, in some measure, the scope of the words. 

The doctrine is this: They that will have heaven, must run 
for it; I say, they that will have heaven, they must run for it. 
I beseech you to heed it well. ‘‘ Know ye not, that they 
which run in a race run all, but one obtaineth the prize? 
So run ye.” ‘The prize is heaven, and if you will have it, 
you must run for it. You have another scripture for this 
in the 12th of the Hebrews, the Ist, 2d, and 3d verses: 
‘Wherefore seeing also,” saith the apostle, “that we are 
compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us 
lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily 
beset us, uke let us run with patience the race that is set 
before us.”’ And let us run, saith he. 

Again, saith Paul, “I so run, not as uncertainly: so 
fight I,”’ &e. 

But before I go any farther: 


5S JOHN BUNYAN. 


1. Fleeing. Observe, That this running is not an ordi- 
nary, or any sort of running, but it is to be understood of 
the swiftest sort of running; and therefore, in the 6th of 
the Hebrews, it is called a fleeing: “‘ That we might have 
strong consolation, who have fled for refuge, to lay hold on 
the hope set before us.’’ Mark, who have fled. It is taken 
from that 20th of Joshua, concerning the man that was to 
flee to the city of refuge, when the avenger of blood was 
hard at his heels, to take vengeance on him for the offence 
he had committed ; therefore it is a running or fleeing for 
one’s life: A running with all might and main, as we use to 
say. So run. 

2. Pressing. Secondly, This running in another place is 
called a pressing. ‘I press toward the mark ;’’ which sig- 
nifieth, that they that will have heaven, they must not stick 
at any difficulties they meet with; but press, crowd, and 
thrust through all that may stand between heaven and their 
souls. So run. 

3. Continuing. Thirdly, This running is-called in an- 
other place, a continuing in the way of life. ‘If you con- 
tinue in the faith grounded, and settled, and be not moved 
away from the hope of the gospel of Christ.’’ Not to run 
a little now and then, by fits and starts, or half-way, or 
almost thither, but to run for my life, to run through all 
difficulties, and to continue therein to the end of the race, 
which must be to the end of my life. ‘So run that ye may 
obtain.”’ And the reasons for this point are these : 

1. Because all or every one that runneth doth not obtain 
the prize; there be many that do run, yea, and run far too, 
who yet miss of the crown that standeth at the end of the 
race. You know that all that run in a race do not obtain 
the victory; they all run, but one wins. And so it is here; 
it is not every one that runneth, nor every one that seeketh, 
nor every one that striveth for the mastery, that hath it. 
“Though a man do strive for the mastery,” saith Paul, 


THE HEAVENLY FOOTMAN. 59 


*< yet he is not crowned, unless he strive lawfully ;” that is, 
unless he so run, and so strive, as to have God’s approba- 
tion. What, do ye think that every heavy-heeled professor 
will have heaven? What, every lazy one? every wanton 
and foolish professor, that will be stopped by anything, 
kept back by any thing, that scarce runneth so fast heaven- 
ward as a snail creepeth on the ground? Nay, there are 
some professors that do not go on so fast in the way of God as 
a snail doth go on the wall; and yet these think, that heavén 
and happiness is for them. But stay, there are many more 
that run than there be that obtain; therefore he that will 
have heaven must run for it. 

2. Because you know, that though a man do run, yet if 
he do not overcome, or win, as well as run, what will they 
be the better for their running? They will- get nothing. 
You know the man that runneth, he doth do it that he may 
win the prize; but if he doth not obtain it, he doth lose his 
labor, spend his pains and time, and that to no purpose; I 
say, he getteth nothing. And ah! how many such runners 
will there be found in the day of judgment? Even multi- 
tudes, multitudes that have run, yea, run so far as to come 
to heaven-gates, and not able to get any farther, but there 
stand knocking, when it is too late, crying, Lord, Lord, 
when they have nothing but rebukes for their pains. Depart 
from me, you come not here, you come too late, you run too 
lazily; the door is shut. ‘“‘ When once the master of the 
house is risen up,” saith Christ, ‘“‘and hath shut to the door, 
and ye begin to stand without, and to knock, saying, Lord, 
Lord, open to us, I will say, I know you not, Depart,” ce. 
O sad will the state of those be that run and miss; there- 
fore, if you will have heaven, you must run for it; and ‘‘so 
run that ye may obtain.” 

3. Because the way is long (I speak metaphorically), and 
there is many a dirty step, many a high hill, much work to 
do, a wicked heart, world, and devil to overcome; I say, 


60 JOHN BUNYAN. 


there are many steps to be taken by those that intend to be 
saved, by running or walking in the steps of that faith of 
our father Abraham. Out of Egypt thou must go through 
the Red Sea; thou must run a long and tedious journey, 
through the vast howling wilderness, before thou come to 
the land of promise. 

4. They that will go to heaven they must run for it; be- 
cause, as the way is long, so the time in which they are to 
get to the end of it is very uncertain; the time present is 
the only time; thou hast no more time allotted thee than 
that thou now enjoyest: ‘‘ Boast not thyself of to-morrow, 
for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.”’ Do not 
say, I have time enough to get to heaven seven years hence: 
for I tell thee, the bell may toll for thee before seven days 
more be ended ; and when death comes, away thou must go, 
whether thou art provided or not; and therefore look to it ; 
make no delays; it is not good dallying with things of so 
great concernment as the salvation or damnation of thy 
soul. You know he that hath a great way to go in a little 
time, and less by half than he thinks of, he had need to run 
for it. 

5. They that will have heaven, they must run for it; be- 
cause the devil, the law, sin, death, and hell follow them. 
There is never a poor soul that is going to heaven, but the 
devil, the law, sin, death, and hell, make after that soul. - 
“The devil, your adversary, as a roaring lion, goeth about, 
seeking whom he may devour.’’ And I will assure you, the 
devil is nimble, he can run apace, he is light of foot, he 
hath overtaken many, he hath turned up their heels, and hath 
given them an everlasting fall. Also the law, that can shoot 
a great way, have a care thou keep out of the reach of those 
great guns, the ten commandments. Hell also hath a wide 
mouth ; it can stretch itself farther than you are aware of. 
And as the angel said to Lot, “Take heed, look not behind 
thee, neither tarry thou in all the plain” (that is, anywhere 


THE HEAVENLY FOOTMAN. 61 


between this and heaven), “lest thou be consumed ;”’ so say 
I to thee, Take heed, tarry not, lest either the devil, hell, 
death, or the fearful curses of the law of God, do overtake 
thee, and throw thee down in the midst of thy sins, so as 
never to rise and recover again. If this were well consi- 
dered, then thou, as well as I, wouldst say, They that will 
have heaven must run for it. 

6. They that will go to heaven must run for it; because 
perchance the gates of heaven may be shut shortly. Some- 
times sinners have not heaven-gates open to them so long as 
they suppose; and if they be once shut against a man, they 
are so heavy, that all the men in the world, nor all the an- 
gels in heaven, are not able to open them. “I shut, and 
no man can open,” saith Christ. And how if thou shouldst 
come but one quarter of an hour too late? I tell thee, it 
will cost thee an eternity to bewail thy misery in. Francis 
Spira can tell thee what it is to stay till the gate of mercy 
be quite shut; or to run so lazily, that they be shut before 
thou get within them. What, to be shut out! what, out of 
heaven! Sinner, rather than lose it, run for it; yea, and 
‘so run that thou mayst obtain.” 

T. Lastly, Because if thou lose, thou losest all, thou losest 
soul, God, Christ, heaven, ease, peace, &c. Besides, thou 
layest thyself open to all the shame, contempt, and reproach, 
that either God, Christ, saints, the world, sin, the devil, and 
all, can lay upon thee. As Christ saith of the foolish builder, 
so will I say of thee, if thou be such a one who runs and 
misses; I say, even all that go by will begin to mock at 
thee, saying, This man began to run well, but was not able 
to finish. But more of this anon. 

Quest. But how should a poor soul do to run? For this 
very thing is that which afflicteth me sore (as you say), to 
think that I may run, and yet fall short. Methinks to 
fall short at last, O, it fears me greatly! Pray tell me, 
therefore, how I should run. 


62 JOHN BUNYAN. 


Ans. That thou mayst indeed be satisfied in this particu- 
lar consider these following things. 

The first direction. If thou wouldst so run as to obtain 
the kingdom of heaven, then be sure that thou get into the 
way that leadeth thither: For it is a vain thing to think 
that ever thou shalt have the prize, though thou runnest 
never so fast, unless thou art in the way that leads to it. 
Set the case, that there should be a man in London that 
was to run to York for a wager; now, though he run never 
so swiftly, yet if he run full south, he might run himself 
quickly out of breath, and be never the nearer the prize, 
but rather the farther off. Just so is it here; it is not 
simply the runner, nor yet the hasty runner, that winneth 
the crown, unless he be in the way that leadeth thereto. I 
have observed, that little time which I have been a professor, 
that there is a great running to and fro, some this way, and 
some that way, yet it is to be feared most of them are out 
of the way, and then, though they run as swift as the eagle 
can. fly, they are benefited nothing at all. 

Here is one runs a-quaking, another a-ranting ; one again 
runs after the baptism, and another after the Independency: 
Here is one for Free-will, and. another for Presbytery; and 
yet possibly most of all these sects run quite the wrong way, 
and yet every one is for his life, his soul, either for heaven 
or hell. 

If thou now say, Which is the way? I tell thee it is 
Christ, the Son of Mary, the Son of God. Jesus saith, “I 
am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh to the ~ 
Father but by me.” So then thy business is (if thou wouldst 
have salvation), to see if Christ be thine, with all his bene- 
fits; whether he hath covered thee with his righteousness, 
whether he hath showed thee that thy sins are washed away 
with his heart-blood, whether thou art planted into him, and 
whether thou have faith in him, so as to make a life out of 
him, and to conform thee to him; that is, such faith as to 


THE HEAVENLY FOOTMAN. 63 . 


conclude that thou art righteous, because Christ is thy right- 
eousness, and so constrained to walk with him as the joy of 
thy heart, because he saveth thy soul. And for the Lord’s 
sake take heed, and do not deceive thyself, and think thou 
art in the way upon too slight grounds; for if thou miss of 
the way, thou wilt miss of the prize, and if thou miss of 
that I am sure thou wilt lose thy soul, even that soul which 
is worth more than the whole world. 

But I have treated more largely on this in my book of 
the two covenants, and therefore shall pass it now; only I 
beseech thee to have a care of thy soul, and that thou mayst 
so do, take this counsel : 

Mistrust thy own strength, and throw it away; down on 
thy knees in prayer to the Lord for the spirit of truth; 
search his word for direction; flee seducers’ company; keep 
company with the soundest Christians, that have most expe- 
rience of Christ; and be sure thou have a care of Quakers, 
Ranters, Free-willers: Also do not have too much company 
with some Anabaptists, though I go under that name my- 
self. I tell thee this is such a serious matter, and I fear 
thou wilt so little regard it, that the thought of the worth 
of the thing, and of thy too light regarding of it, doth even 
make my heart ache whilst I am writing to thee. The Lord 
teach thee the way by his Spirit, and then I am sure thou 
wilt know it. So run. 

Only by the way, let me bid ‘thee have a care of two 
things, and so I shall pass to the next thing. 

1. Have a care of relying on the outward obedience to 
any of God’s commands, or thinking thyself ever the better 
in the sight of God for that. 

2. Take heed of fetching peace for thy soul from any 
inherent righteousness: But if thou canst believe, that as 
thou art a sinner, so thou art justified freely by the love of 
God, through the redemption that is in Christ; and that 
God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven thee, not because he 


64 JOHN BUNYAN. 


saw anything done, or to be done, in or by thee, to move 
him thereunto to do it; for that is the right way; the Lord 
put thee into it, and keep thee in it. 

The second direction. As thou shouldst get into the way, 
so thou shouldst also be much in studying and musing on 
the way. You know men that would be expert in any- 
thing, they are usually much in studying of that thing, and 
so likewise is it with those that quickly grow expert in any 
way. This therefore thou shouldst do; let thy study be 
much exercised about Christ, which is the way, what he is, 
what he hath done, and why he is what he is, and why 
he hath done what is done; as, why ‘he took upon him the 
form of a servant,’’ (Phil. ii.); why he was ‘‘ made in the like- 
ness of man;’’ why he cried; why he died; why he “bare 
the sin of the world; why he was made sin, and why he 
was made righteousness ; why he is in heaven in the nature of 
man, and what he doth there. Be much in musing and con- 
sidering of these things; be thinking also Eoasd of those 
places which thou must not come near, but leave some on 
this hand, and some on that hand; as it is with those that 
travel into other countries, they must leave such a gate on 
this hand, and such a bush on that hand, and go by such a 
place, where standeth such a thing. Thus therefore you 
must do: ‘‘ Avoid such things which are expressly forbidden 
in the word of God.’ Withdraw thy foot far from her, 
“and come not nigh the door of her house, for her steps 
take hold of hell, going down to the chambers of death.” 
And so of everything that is not in the way, have a care 
of it, that thou go not by it; come not near it, have no- 
thing to do with it. So run. 

The third direction. Not only thus, but in the next 
place, Thou must strip thyself of those things that may | 
hang upon thee, to the hindering of thee in the way to the 
kingdom of heaven, as covetousness, pride, lust, or what- 
ever else thy heart may be inclining unto, which may hinder 


THE HEAVENLY FOOTMAN. 65 


thee in this heavenly race. Men that run for a wager, 
if they intend to win as well as run, they do not use to en- 
cumber themselves, or carry those things about them that 
may be an hindrance to them in their running. ‘‘ Every 
man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things :”’ 
That is, he layeth aside everything that would be anywise a 
disadvantage to him; as saith the apostle, ‘‘ Let us lay aside 
every weight, and the sin that doth so easily beset us, and 
let us run with patience the race that is set before us.” It 
is but a vain thing to talk of going to heaven, if thou let 
thy heart be encumbered with those things that would hin- 
der. Would you not say that such a man would be in danger 
of losing, though he run, if he fill his pockets with stones, 
hang heavy garments on his shoulders, and great lumpish 
shoes on his feet? So it is here; thou talkest of going to 
heaven, and yet fillest thy pocket with stones, 7. e., fillest 
thy heart with this world, lettest that hang on thy shoulders, 
with its profits and pleasures: Alas, alas, thou art widely 
mistaken: If thou intendest to win, thou must strip, thou 
must lay aside every weight, thou must be temperate in all 
things. Thou must so run. 

The fourth direction. Beware of by-paths; take heed 
thou dost not turn into those lanes which lead out of the 
way. There are crooked paths, paths in which men go 
astray, paths that lead to death and damnation, but take 
heed of all those. Some of them are dangerous because of 
practice, some because of opinion, but mind them not; mind 
the path before thee, look right before thee, turn neither to 
the right hand nor to the left, but let thine eyes look right 
on, even right before thee; ‘‘ Ponder the path of thy feet, 
and let all thy ways be established.”’ Turn not to the right 
hand nor to the left: “Remove thy foot far from evil.” 
This counsel being not so seriously taken as given, is the 
reason of that starting from opinion to opinion, reeling this 
way and that way, out of this lane into that lane, and so 

3 E 


66 JOHN BUNYAN. 


missing the way to the kingdom. Though the way to heaven 
be but one, yet there are many crooked lanes and by-paths 
shoot down upon it, as I may say. And again, notwith- 
standing the kingdom of heaven be the biggest city, yet 
usually those by-paths are most beaten, most travellers go 
those ways; and therefore the way to heaven is hard to be 
found, and as hard to be kept in, by reason of these. Yet, 
nevertheless, it is in this case as it was with the harlot of 
Jericho; she had one scarlet thread tied in her window, by 
which her house was known: So it is here, the scarlet 
streams of Christ’s blood run throughout the way to the 
kingdom of heaven; therefore mind that, see if thou do 
find the besprinkling of the blood of Christ in the way, 
and if thou do, be of good cheer, thou art in the right way ; 
but have a care thou beguile not thyself with a fancy; for 
then thou mayst light into any lane or way; but that thou 
mayst not be mistaken, consider, though it seem never so 
pleasant, yet if thou do not find that in the very middle of 
the road there is written with the heart-blood of Christ, that 
he came into the world to save sinners, and that we are jus- 
tified, though we are ungodly, shun that way; for this it is 
which the apostle meaneth when he saith, ‘‘ We have bold- 
ness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a 
new and living way which he hath consecrated for us, 
through the vail, that is to say, his flesh.’ How easy a 
matter is it in this our day, for the devil to be too cunning 
for poor souls, by calling his by-paths the way to the king- 
dom! If such an opinion or fancy be but cried up by one 
or more, this inscription being’ set upon it by the devil, [ This 
is the way of God] how speedily, greedily, and by heaps, do 
poor simple souls throw away themselves upon it; especially 
if it be daubed over with a few external acts of morality, 
if so good! But this is because men do not know painted 
by-paths from the plain way to the kingdom of heaven. 
They have not yet learned the true Christ, and what his 


THE HEAVENLY FOOTMNAN, 67 


righteousness is, neither have they a sense of their own 
insufficiency; but are bold, proud, presumptuous, self-con- 
ceited. And therefore, : 

The fifth direction. Do not thou be too much in looking 
too high in thy journey heavenwards. You know men that 
run a race do not use to stare and gaze this way and that, 
neither do they use to cast up their eyes too high, lest haply, 
through their too much gazing with their eyes after other 
things, they in the mean time stumble, and catch a fall. 
The very same case is this; if thou gaze and stare after 
every opinion and way that comes into the world, also if 
thou be prying overmuch into God’s secret decrees, or let 
thy heart too much entertain questions about some nice fool- 
ish curiosities, thou mayst stumble and fall, as many hun- 
dreds in England have done, both in ranting and quakery, 
to their own eternal overthrow, without the marvellous ope- 
ration of God’s grace be suddenly stretched forth to bring 
them back again. Take heed, therefore; follow not that 
proud, lofty spirit, that, devil-like, cannot be content with 
his own station. David was of an excellent spirit, where he 
saith, ‘‘ Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty, 
neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or things too 
high for me. Surely I have behaved and quieted myself as 
a child that is weaned of his mother: My soul is even as a 
weaned child.” Do thou so run. 

The sixth direction. Take heed that you have not an ear 
open to every one that calleth after you as you are in your 
journey. Men that run, you know, if any do call after 
them, saying, I would speak with you, or go not too fast, 
and you shall have my company with you, if they run for 
some great matter, they use to say, Alas, I cannot stay, I 
am in haste, pray talk not to me now; neither can I stay 
for you, I am running for a wager: If I win I am made, if 
I lose I am undone, and therefore hinder me not. Thus 
wise are men when they run for corruptible things, and thus 


68 JOHN BUNYAN. 


shouldst thou do, and thou hast more cause to do so than 
they, forasmuch as they run for things that last not, but 
thou for an incorruptible glory. I give thee notice of this 
betimes, knowing that thou shalt have enough call after 
thee, even the devil, sin, this world, vain company, plea- 
sures, profits, esteem among men, ease, pomp, pride, together 
with an innumerable company of such companions; one cry- 
ing, Stay for me; the other. saying, Do not leave me be- 
hind; a third saying, And take me along with you. What, 
will you go, saith the devil, without your sins, pleasures, 
and profits? Are you so hasty? Can you not stay and 
take these along with you? Will you leave your friends 
and companions behind you? Can you not do as your 
neighbors do, carry the world, sin, lust, pleasure, profit, 
esteem among men, along with you? Have a care thou do 
not let thine ear now be open to the tempting, enticing, 
alluring, and soul-entangling flatteries of such sink-souls as 
these are. ‘‘ My son,”’ rae Solomon, ‘if sinners entice 
thee, consent thou not.’ 

You know what it cost the young man Gatuel Solomon 
speaks of in the 7th of the Proverbs, that was enticed by a 
harlot: “‘ With much fair speech she won him, and eaused 
him to yield, with the flattering of her lips she forced him, 
till he went after her as an ox to the slaughter, or as a fool 
to the correction of the stocks ;’’ even so far, * till the dart 
struck through his liver, and knew not that it was for his 
life. Hearken unto me now therefore,” saith he, “O ye 
children, and attend to the words of my mouth, let not thine 
heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths, for 
she hath cast down many wounded, yea, many strong men 
have been slain (that is, kept out of heaven); by her house 
is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death.” 
Soul, take this counsel, and say, Satan, sin, lust, pleasure, — 
profit, pride, friends, companions, and everything else, let 
me alone, stand off, come not nigh me, for I am running for 


THE HEAVENLY FOOTMAN. 69 


heaven, for my soul, for God, for Christ, from hell and ever- 
lasting damnation; if I win, I win all; and if I lose, I lose 
all; let me alone, for I will not hear. So run. 

The seventh direction. In the next place, be not daunted 
though thou meetest with never so many discouragements in 
thy journey thither. That man that is resolved for heaven, 
if Satan cannot win him by flatteries, he will endeavor to 
weaken him by discouragements; saying, Thou art a sinner, 
thou hast broke God’s law, thou art not elected, thou comest 
too late, the day of grace is passed, God doth not care for 
thee, thy heart is naught, thou art lazy, with a hundred 
other discouraging suggestions. And thus it was with David, 
where he saith, “I had fainted, unless I had believed to see 
the loving-kindness of the Lord in the land of the living.” 
As if he should say, the devil did so rage, and my heart 
was so base, that had I judged according to my own sense 
and feeling, I had been absolutely distracted ; but I trusted 
to Christ in the promise, and looked that God would be as 
good as his promise, in having mercy upon me, an unworthy 
sinner; and this is that which encouraged me, and kept me 
from fainting. And thus must thou do when Satan, or the 
law, or thy own conscience, do go about to dishearten thee, 
either by the greatness of thy sins, the wickedness of thy 
heart, the tediousness of the way, the loss of outward en- 
joyments, the hatred that thou wilt procure from the world, 
or the like; then thou must encourage thyself with the free- 
ness of the promises, the tender-heartedness of Christ, the 
merits of his blood, the freeness of his invitations to come 
in, the greatness of the sin of others that have been par- 
doned, and that the same God, through the same Christ, 
holdeth forth the same grace as free as ever. If these be 
not thy meditations, thou wilt draw very heavily in the 
way to heaven, if thou do not give up all for lost, and so 
knock off from following any farther ; therefore, I say, take 
heart in thy journey, and say to them that seek thy destruc- 


70 JOHN BUNYAN. 


tion, ‘‘ Rejoice not against me, O my enemy, for when I fall 
I shall arise, when I sit in darkness the Lord shall be a light 
unto me.’’ So run. 

The eighth direction. Take heed of being offended at the 
cross that thou must go by before thou come to heaven. 
You must understand (as I have already touched) that there 
is no man that goeth to heaven but he must go by the cross. 
The cross is the standing way-mark by which all they that 
go to glory must pass. 

‘‘We must through much tribulation enter into the king- 
dom of heaven.”’ ‘‘ Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ 
Jesus shall suffer persecution.” If thou art in thy way to 
the kingdom, my life for thine thou wilt come at the cross 
shortly (the Lord grant thou dost not shrink at it, so as to 
turn thee back again). ‘If any man will come after me,”’ 
saith Christ, ‘let him deny himself, and take up his cross 
daily, and follow me.” The cross it stands, and hath stood, 
from the beginning, as @ way-mark to the kingdom of hea- 
ven. You know, if one ask you the way to such and such 
a place, you, for the better direction, do not only say, This is 
the way, but then also say, You must go by such a gate, by 
such a stile, such a bush, tree, bridge, or such like: Why, 
so it is here; art thou inquiring the way to heaven? Why, 
I tell thee, Christ is the way;. into him thou must get, 
into his righteousness, to be justified; and if thou art in 
him, thou wilt presently see the cross, thou must go close by 
it, thou must touch it, nay, thou must take it up, or else thou 
wilt quickly go out of the way that leads to heaven, and 
turn up some of those crooked lanes that lead down to the 
chambers of death. , ; 

Now thou mayest know the cross by these six things. 

1. It is known in the doctrine of justification. 2. In the 
doctrine of mortification. 8. In the doctrine of persever- 
ance. 4. In self-denial. 5. Patience. 6. Communion with 
poor saints. 


THE HEAVENLY FOOTMUAN- 71 


1. In the doctrine of justification, there is a great deal 
of the cross in that; a man is forced to suffer the destruc- 
tion of his own righteousness for the righteousness of an- 
other. This is no easy matter for a man to do; I assure to 
you it stretcheth every vein in his heart, before he will be 
brought to yield to it. What, for a man to deny, reject, ab- 
hor, and throw away all his prayers, tears, alms, keeping of 
sabbaths, hearing, reading, with the rest, in the point of jus- 
tification, and to count them accursed; and to be willing, in 
the very midst of the sense of his sins, to throw himself wholly 
upon the righteousness and obedience of another man, ab- 
horring his own, counting it as deadly sin, as the open breach 
of the law: I say, to do this in deed and in truth, is the 
biggest piece of the cross; and therefore Paul calleth this 
very thing a suffering; where he saith, ‘‘ And I have suf- 
fered the loss of all things (which principally was his right- 
eousness) that I might win Christ, and be found in him, not 
having (but rejecting) my own righteousness.’ That is the 
first. 

2. In the doctrine of mortification is also much of the 
cross. Is it nothing for a man to lay hands on his vile 
opinions, on his vile sins, of his bosom sins, of his beloved, 
pleasant, darling sins, that stick as close to him as the flesh 
sticks to the bones? What, to lose all these brave things 
that my eyes behold, for that which I never saw with my 
eyes? What, to lose my pride, my covetousness, my vain 
company, sports and pleasures, and the rest? I tell you, 
this is no easy matter: if it were, what need all those 
prayers, sighs, watchings? What need we be so_back- 
ward to it? Nay, do you not see, that some men, before 
they will set about this work, they will even venture the loss 
of their souls, heaven, God, Christ, and all? What means 
else all those delays and put-offs, saying, Stay a little longer, 
I am loth to leave my sins while I am so young, and in 
health? Again, what is the reason else that others do it so 


72 JOHN BUNYAN. 


by the halves, coldly and seldom, notwithstanding they are 
convinced over and over; nay, and also promise to amend, 
and yet all’s in vain? I will assure you, to cut off right 
hands, and to pluck out right eyes, is no pleasure to the 
flesh. 

3. The doctrine of perseverance is also cross to the flesh ; 
which is not only to begin but to hold out, not only to bid 
fair, and to say, Would I had heaven, but so to know Christ, 
put on Christ, and walk with Christ so as to come to heaven. 
Indeed it is no great matter to begin to look for heaven, to 
begin to seek the Lord, to begin to shun sin; O but it is a 
very great matter to continue with God’s approbation: “* My 
servant Caleb,” saith God, “‘is a man of another spirit, he 
hath followed me (followed me always, he hath continually 
followed me) fully, he shall possess the land.” Almost all 
the many thousands of the children of Israel in their gene- 
ration, fell short of perseverance when they walked from 
Egypt towards the land of Canaan. Indeed they went to 
work at first pretty willingly, but they were very short- 
winded, they were quickly out of breath, and in their hearts 
they turned back again into Egypt. 

It is an easy matter for a man to run hard for a spurt, 
for a furlong, for a mile or two: O, but to hold out for a 
hundred, for a thousand, for ten thousand miles, that man 
that doth this, he must look to meet with cross, pain, and 
wearisomeness to the flesh, especially if as he goeth he 
meeteth with briars and quagmires, and other encumbrances, 
that make his journey so much the more painful. 

Nay, do you not see with your eyes daily, that perse- 
verance is a very great part of the cross? why else do men 
so soon grow weary? I could point out a many, that after 
they have followed the ways of God about a twelvemonth, 
others it may be two, three, or four (some more, and some . 
less) years, they have been beat out of wind, have taken up 
their lodging and rest before they have got half-way to 


THE HEAVENLY FOOTMNAN. 73 


° 


heaven, some in this, some in that sin; and have secretly, 
nay, sometimes openly said, that the way is too strait, the 
race too long, the religion too holy, and cannot hold out, I 
can go no farther. 

And so likewise of the other three (to wit), patience, self- 
denial, communion, and communication with and to the poor 
saints: How hard are these things? It is an easy matter 
to deny another man, but it is not so easy a matter to deny 
one’s self; to deny myself out of love to God, to his gospel, 
to his saints, of this advantage, and of that gain; nay, of 
that which otherwise I might lawfully do, were it not for 
offending them. ‘That scripture is but seldom read, and sel- 
domer put in practice, which saith, ‘I will eat no flesh while 
the world standeth, if it make my brother to offend ;” again, 
“We that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the 
weak, and not to please ourselves.’’ But how froward, how 
hasty, how peevish, and self-resolved are the generality of 
professors at this day! Also how little considering the 
poor, unless it be to say, Be thou warmed and filled! But 
to give is a seldom work; also especially to give to any 
poor; I tell you all things are cross to flesh and blood; and 
that man that hath but a watchful eye over the flesh, and 
also some considerable measure of strength against it, he 
shall find his heart in these things like unto a starting horse, 
that is rodg without a curbing bridle, ready to start at every- 
thing that is offensive to him; yea, and ready to run away, 
too, do what the rider can. 

It is the cross which keepeth those that are kept from 
heaven. Iam persuaded, were it not for the cross, where 
we have one professor we should have twenty ; but this cross, 
that is it which spoileth all. 

Some: men, as I said before, when they come at the cross 
they can go no farther, but back again to their sins they 
must go. Others they stumble at it, and break their necks; 
others again, when they see the cross is approaching, they 


74 JOHN BUNYAN. 


turn aside to the left hand, or to the right hand, and so 
think to get,to heaven another way; but they will be de- 
ceived. ‘ For all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall,”’ 
mark, ‘‘ shall be sure to suffer persecution.’’ There are but 
few when they come at the cross, cry, Welcome cross! as 
some of the martyrs did to the stake they were burned at: 
Therefore, if you meet with the cross in thy journey, in 
what manner soever it be, be not daunted, and say, Alas, 
what shall Ido now! But rather take courage, knowing, 
that by the cross is the way to the kingdom. Can a man 
believe in Christ, and not be hated by the devil? Can he 
make a profession of this Christ, and that sweetly and con- 
vincingly, and the children of Satan hold their tongue? 
Can darkness agree with light? or the devil endure that 
Christ Jesus should be honored both by faith and a heavenly 
conversation, and let that soul alone at quiet? Did you 
never read that ‘the dragon persecuted the woman ?”’ And 
that Christ saith, “In the world you shall have tribula- 
tions ?” 

The ninth direction. Beg of God that he would do these 
two things for thee: First, Enlighten thine understanding: 
And, secondly, Inflame thy will. If these two be but effect- 
ually done, there is no fear but thou wilt go safe to heaven. 

One of the great reasons why men and women do so little 
regard the other world, it is because they see so little of it: 
And the reason why they see so little of it is, because they 
have their understanding darkened: And therefore, saith 
Paul, ‘Do not you believers walk as do other Gentiles, even 
in the vanity of their minds, having their understanding 
darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the 
ignorance (or foolishness) that is in them, because of the 
blindness of their heart.’? Walk not as those, run not with 
them: alas, poor souls, they have their understandings 
darkened, their hearts blinded, and that is the reason they ~ 
have such undervaluing thoughts of the Lord Jesus Christ, 


THE HEAVENLY FOOTMAN. 75 


and the salvation of their souls. For when men do come to 
see the things of another world, what a God, what a Christ, 
what a heaven, and what an eternal glory there is to be en- 
joyed; also when they see that it is possible for them to 
have a share in it, I tell you it will make them run through 
thick and thin to enjoy it. Moses, having a sight of this, 
because his understanding was enlightened, ‘“‘ He feared not 
the wrath of the king, but chose rather to suffer afflictions 
with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin 
for a season. He refused to be called the son of the king’s 
daughter ;’’ accounting it wonderful riches to be accounted 
worthy of so much as to suffer for Christ, with the poor 
despised saints; and that was because he saw him who was 
invisible, and had respect unto the recompense of reward. 
And this is that which the apostle usually prayeth for in his 
epistles for the saints, namely, “‘ That they might know 
what is the hope of God’s calling, and the riches of the 
glory of his inheritance in the saints; and that they might 
be able to comprehend with all saints, what is the breadth, 
and length, and depth, and height, and know the love of 
Christ, which passeth knowledge.”’ Pray therefore that God 
would enlighten thy understanding; that will be a very 
great help unto thee. It will make thee endure many a 
hard brunt for Christ; as Paul saith, “‘ After you were illu- 
minated, ye endured a great sight of afflictions. You took 
joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves 
that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance.”’ 
If there be never such a rare jewel lie just in a man’s way, 
yet if he sees it not, he will rather trample upon it than 
stoop for it, and it is because he sees it not. Why, so it is 
here, though heaven be worth never so much, and thou hast 
never so much need of it, yet if thou see it not, that is, have 
not thy understanding opened or enlightened to see, thou 
wilt not regard at all: therefore cry to the Lord for en- 
lightening grace, and say, ‘‘ Lord, open my blind eyes ; Lord, 





~ 


76 JOHN BUNYAN. 


take the veil off my dark heart,” show me the things of the 
other world, and let me see the sweetness, glory, and excel- 
lency of them for Christ’s sake. This is the first. 

The tenth direction. Cry to God that he would inflame 
thy will also with the things of the other world. For when 
a man’s will is fully set to do such or such a thing, then it 
must be a very hard matter that shall hinder that man from 
bringing about his end. When Paul’s will was set resolvedly 
to go up to Jerusalem (though it was signified to him before, 
what he should there suffer), he was not daunted at all; nay, 
saith he, “I am ready (or willing) not only to be bound, but 
also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.” 
His will was inflamed with love to Christ; and therefore all 
the persuasions that could be used wrought nothing at all. 

Your self-willed people nobody knows what to do with 
them: we use to say, He will have his own will, do all what 
you can. Indeed to have such a will for heaven, is an ad- 
mirable advantage to a man that undertaketh a race thither; 
a man that is resolved, and hath his will fixed, saith he, I 
will do my best to advantage myself; I will do my worst to 
hinder my enemies; I will not give out as long as I can 
stand ; I will have it or I will lose my life; ‘‘ though he slay 
me yet will I trust in him. I will not let thee go except thou 
bless me.” I will, I will, I will, O this blessed inflamed 
will for heaven! What is it like? If a man be willing, then 
any argument shall be matter of encouragement; but if 
unwilling, then any argument shall give discouragement ; 
this is seen both in saints and sinners; in them that are the 
children of God, and also peck that are the children of the 
devil. As, 

1. The saints of old, is being willing and resolved for 
heaven, what could stop them? Could fire and faggot, sword 
or halter, stinking dungeons, whips, bears, bulls, lions, cruel 
rackings, stoning, starving, nakedness, &c., ‘‘and in all 
these things they were more than conquerors, through him 


THE HEAVENLY FOOTMAN. vid 


that loved them ;” who had also made them “ willing in the 
day of his power.” 

2. See again, on the other side, the children of the devil, 
because they are not willing, how many shifts and starting- 
holes they will have. I have married a*wife, I have a farm, 
I shall offend my landlord, I shall offend my master, I shall 
lose my trading, I shall lose my pride, my pleasures, I shall 
be mocked and scoffed, therefore I dare not come. I, saith 
another, will stay till I am older, till my children are out, 
till I am got a little aforehand in the world, till I have done 
this and that, and the other business: but alas, the thing is, 
they are not willing; for, were they but soundly willing, 
these, and a thousand such as these, would hold them no 
faster than the cords held Samson, when he broke them like 
burnt flax. I tell you the will is all: that is one of the 
chief things which turns the wheel either backwards or for- 
wards; and God knoweth that full well, and so likewise doth 
the devil; and therefore they both endeavor very much to 
strengthen the will of their servants; God, he is for making 
of his a willing people to serve him; and the devil, he doth 
what he can to possess the will and affection of those that 
are his with love to sin; and therefore when Christ comes 
close to the matter, indeed, saith he, ‘‘ You will not come to 
me. How often would I have gathered you as a hen doth 
her chickens, but you would not.” The devil had possessed 
their wills, and so long he was sure enough of them. O 
therefore cry hard to God to inflame thy will for heaven and 
_ Christ: thy will, I say, if that be rightly set for heaven, 
thou wilt not be beat off with discouragements ; and this was 
the reason that when Jacob wrestled with the angel, though 
he lost a limb, as it were, and the hollow of his thigh was 
put out of joint as he wrestled with him, yet, saith he, ‘I 
will not,”’ mark, ‘‘I will not let thee go except thou bless 
me.’ Get thy will tipt with the heavenly grace, and resolu- 
tion against all discouragements, and then thou goest full 


78 JOHN BUNYAN. 


speed for heaven; but if thou falter in thy will, and be not 
found there, thou wilt run hobbling and halting all the way 
thou runnest, and also to be sure thou wilt fall short at last. 
The Lord give thee a will and courage. 

Thus have I done with directing thee how to run to the 
kingdom; be sure thou keep in memory what I have said 
unto thee, lest thou lose thy way. But because I would 
have thee think of them, take all in short in this little bit 
of paper. 

1. Get into the way. 2. Then study on it. 8. Then strip, 
and lay aside everything that would hinder. 4. Beware of 
by-paths. 5. Do not gaze arfl stare too much about thee, 
but be sure to ponder the path of thy feet. 6. Do not stop 
for any that call after thee, whether it be the’ world, the 
flesh, or the devil: for all these will hinder thy journey, if 
possible. 7. Be not daunted with any discouragements thou 
meetest with as thou goest. 8. Take heed of stumbling at 
the cross. 9. Cry hard to God for an enlightened heart, 
and a willing mind, and God give thee a prosperous journey. 

Provocation. Now that you may be provoked to run 
with the foremost, take notice of this. When Lot and -his 
wife were running from cursed Sodom to the mountains, to 
save their lives, it is said, that his wife looked back from 
behind him, and she became a pillar of salt; and yet you 
see that neither her practice, nor the judgment of God that 
fell upon her for the same, would cause Lot to look behind 
him. I have sometimes wondered at Lot in this particular ; 
his wife looked behind her, and died immediately, but let 
what would become of her, Lot would not so much as look — 
behind him to see her.’ We do not read that he did so much 
as once look where she was, or what was become of her; his 
heart was indeed upon his journey, and well it might: there 
was the mountain before him, and the fire and brimstone be- 
hind him; his life lay at stake, and he had lost it if he had 
but looked behind him. Do thou so run: and in thy race 


THE HEAVENLY FOOTMAN. 79 


remember Lot’s wife, and remember her doom; and remem- 
ber for what that doom did overtake her; and remember 
that God made her an example for all lazy runners, to the 
end of the world; and take heed thou fall not after the same 
example. But, . 

If this will not provoke thee, consider*thus, 1. Thy soul 
is thy own soul, that is either to be saved or lost; thou shalt 
not lose my soul by thy laziness. It is thy own soul, thy 
own ease, thy own peace, thy own advantage or disadvan- 
tage. If it were my own that thou art desired to be good 
unto, methinks reason shéuld move thee somewhat to pity it. 
But alas, it is thy own, thy own soul. ‘‘ What shall it profit 
aman if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own 
soul?’ God’s people wish well to the souls of others, and 
wilt not thou wish well to thy own? And if this will not 
provoke thee, then think, 

Again, 2. If thou lose thy soul, it is thou also that must 
bear the blame. It made Cain stark mad to consider that 
he had not looked to his brother Abel’s soul. How much 
more will it perplex thee to think, that thou hadst not a 
care of thy own? And if this will not provoke thee to bestir 
thyself, think again, 

3. That if thou wilt not run, the people of God are re- 
solved to deal with thee even as Lot dealt with his wife, that 
is, leave thee behind them. It may be thou hast a father, 
mother, brother, &c., going post-haste to heaven, wouldst 
thou be willing to be left behind them? Surely no. 

Again, 4. Will it not be a dishonor to thee to see the 
very boys and girls in the country to have more wit than 
thyself? It may be the servants of some men, as the horse- 
keeper, ploughman, scullion, &c., are more looking after 
heaven than their masters. I am apt to think, sometimes, » 
that more servants than masters, that more tenants than 
landlords, will inherit the kingdom of heaven. But is not 
this a shame for them that are such? Iam persuaded you 


80 JOHN BUNYAN. 


scorn, that your servants should say that they are wiser than 
you in the things of this world; and yet I am bold to say, 
that many of them are wiser than you in the things of the 
world to come, which are of greater concernment. 
Expostulation. Well, then, sinner, what sayest thou? 
Where is thy heart? Wilt thou run? Art thou resolved 
.to strip? Or art thou not? Think quickly, man, it is not 
dallying in this matter. Confer not with flesh and blood; 
look up to heaven, and see how thou likest it; also to hell 
(of which thou mayest understand something in my book, 
called, A few sighs from hell; or, The groans of a damned — 
soul, which I wish thee to read seriously over), and accord- 
ingly devote thyself. If thou dost not know the way, in- 
quire at the word of God; if thou wantest company, cry 
for God’s Spirit; if thou wantest encouragement, entertain 
the promises. But be sure thou begin betimes; get into 
the way, run apace, and hold out to the end; and the Lord 
give thee a prosperous journey. FAREWELL. | 





Ni 
GOD’S LOVE TO FALLEN MAN. 


WESLEY. 

[For four generations, the Wesley family gave ministers of Puritan 
principles to the Church of England. The last and greatest of these 
was Joun WeEsLEY, who was born at Epworth, Lincolnshire, June 17th 
1703, and died in London, March 2d 1791. He graduated with dis- 
tinction from Christ Church, Oxford, and was ordained priest in 1728. 
Of the origin of Methodism he relates: “In 1729 two young men in 
England, reading the Bible, saw they could not be saved without 
holiness ; followed after it, and incited others so to do. In 1737 they 
saw, likewise, that men are justified before they are sanctified; but 
still holiness was their object. God then thrust them out to raise a 
holy people.” Yet he dates his own conversion to May 24th 1738, 
soon after his return from a missionary visit with the Moravians to 
Georgia. The remainder of his life is a wonderful record of Christian 
evangelization, patient industry, and herculean labors. Perhaps 
excepting the Apostle Paul, he was the chief missionary of the Gos- 
pel to the poor, meeting them in the churchyards, at their workshops, 
and in their homes. During these fifty-three years he travelled 
225,000 miles, and preached more than 40,000 sermons—never miss- 
ing a single appointment. Three million members in the various 
Methodist sects are the living fruits of his labors. His writings are 
voluminous and of varying value, extending to thirty-two volumes. 
Clearness of thought, directness of address, and calmness of appeal, 
characterize his sermons. | 


“ Not as the Transgression, so is the Free Gift.”—Romans v. 15. 

How exceedingly common, and how bitter is the outcry 
against our first parent, for the mischief which he not only 
brought upon himself, but entailed upon his latest posterity ! 
It was by his wilful rebellion against God, “ that sin entered 
into the world.” ‘‘By one man’s disobedience,” as the 
Apostle observes, the many, as many as were then in the 
loins of their forefathers, were made, or constituted sinners : 
not only deprived of the favor of God, but also of his im- 

F (81) 


Bele JOHN WESLEY. 


age; of all virtue, righteousness, and true holiness, and 
sunk partly into the image of the devil, in pride, malice, 
and all other diabolical tempers; partly into the image of 
the brute, being fallen under the dominion of brutal passions 
and grovelling appetites. Hence also Death entered into 
the world, with all his forerunners and attendants; pain, 
sickness, and a whole train of uneasy as well as unholy 
passions and tempers. | 

“ For all this we may thank Adam,” has been echoed 
down from generation to generation. The self-same charge 
has been repeated in every age and every nation where the 
oracles of God are known, in which alone this grand and 
important event has been discovered to the children of men. 
Has not your heart, and probably your lips too, joined in 
the general charge? How few are there of those who 
believe the.scriptural relation of the Fall of Man, that 
have not entertained the same thought concerning our first 
parent? Severely condemning him, that, through wilful 
disobedience to the sole command of his Creator, 


‘Brought death into the world and all our woe.” 


Nay, it were well if the charge rested here: but it is certain 
it does not. It cannot be denied that it frequently glances 
from Adam to his Creator. Have not thousands, even of 
those that are called Christians, taken the liberty to call his 
mercy, if not his justice also, into question, on this very 
account ? Some indeed have done this a little more modestly, 


in an oblique and indirect manner: but others have thrown 


aside the mask, and asked, “‘ Did not God foresee that Adam 
would abuse his liberty? And did he not know the baneful 
consequences which this must naturally have on all his pos- 
terity? And why then did he permit that disobedience? 
Was it not easy for the Almighty to have prevented it?’ He 
certainly did foresee the whole. This cannot be denied. 
‘“‘For known unto God are all his works from the beginning 


od 
ee YS ae 


GOD’S LOVE TO FALLEN MAN. 83 


of the world.” (Rather from all eternity, as the words 
an’ atwvos properly signify.) And it was undoubtedly in 
his power to prevent it; for he hath all power both in heaven 
and earth. But it was known to him at the same time, that 
it was best upon the whole not to prevent it. He knew, 
that, ‘not as the transgression, so is the free gift:’’ that the 
evil resulting from the former was not as the good resulting 
from the latter, not worthy to be compared with it. He saw 
that to permit the fall of the first man was far best for man- 
kind in general: that abundantly more good than evil would 
accrue to the posterity of Adam by his fall: that if ‘sin 
abounded”’ thereby over all the earth, yet grace “ would 
much more abound:” yea, and that to every individual of 
the human race, unless it was his own choice. 

It is exceedingly strange that hardly anything has been 
written, or at least published, on this subject: nay, that it 
has been so’ little weighed or understood by the generality 
of Christians: especially considering that it is not a matter 
of mere curiosity, but a truth of the deepest importance ; wt 
being impossible, on any other principle, 


“To assert a gracious Providence, 
And justify the ways of God with men :” 


and considering withal, how plain this important truth is, to 
all sensible and candid inquirers. May the Lover of Men 
open the eyes of our understanding, to perceive clearly that 
by the fall of Adam mankind in general have gained a 
capacity, 

First, of being more holy and happy on earth, and, 

Secondly, of being more happy in heaven than otherwise 
they could have been. 

And, first, mankind in general have gained by the fall 
of Adam, a capacity of attaining more holiness and happi- 
ness on earth than it would have been possible for them to 
attain if Adam had not fallen. For if Adam had not 


84 JOHN WESLEY. 


fallen, Christ had not died. Nothing can be more clear than © 
this: nothing more undeniable: the more thoroughly we 
consider the point, the more deeply shall we be convinced 
of it. Unless all the partakers of human nature had 
received that deadly wound in Adam, it would not have been 
needful for the Son of God to take our nature upon him. 
Do you not see that this was the very ground of his coming 
into the world? ‘ By one’man sin entered into the world, 
and death by sin. And thus death passed upon all’ through 
him, ‘fin whom all men sinned.” (Rom. vy. 12.) Was it not 
to remedy this very thing, that “the Word was made flesh ?”’ 
that ‘‘as in Adam all died, so in Christ all might be made 
alive?’ Unless, then, many had been made sinners by the 
disobedience of one, by the obedience of one, many would 
not have been made righteous. (Ver. 18.) So there would 
have been no room for that amazing display of the Son of 
God’s love to mankind. There would have been no occasion 
for his “being obedient unto death, even the death of the 
cross.” It could not then have been said, to the astonish- 
ment of all the hosts of heaven, ‘ God so loved the world,” 
yea, the ungodly world, which had no thought or desire of 
returning to him, “that he gave his Son” out of his bosom, 
his only begotten Son, ‘‘ to the end that whosoever believeth 
on him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Neither 
could we then have said, ‘‘ God was in Christ reconciling the 
world to himself :’ or that he “‘made him to be sin,” that 
is, a sin-offering “‘for us, who knew no sin, that we might 
be made the righteousness of God through him.” There 
would have been no such occasion for such “‘an Advocate 
with the Father,” as “Jesus Christ the Righteous:” neither 
for his appearing ‘at the right hand of God, to make inter- 
cession for us.” 

What is the necessary consequence of this? It is this: 
there could then have been no such thing as faith in God, 
thus loving the world, giving his only Son for us men, and 


GOD’S LOVE TO FALLEN MAN. 85 


for our salvation. There could have been no such thing as 
faith in the Son of God, ‘as loving us and giving himself 
for us.” There could have been no faith in the Spirit of 
God, as renewing the image of God in our‘hearts, as raising 
us from the death of sin unto the life of righteousness. 
Indeed, the whole privilege of justification by faith could 
have no existence; there could have been no redemption in 
the blood of Christ: neither could Christ have been “made 
of God unto us,”’ either ‘‘ wisdom, righteousness, sanctifica- 
tion, or redemption.” 

And the same grand blank which was in our faith, must 
likewise have been in our love. We might have loved the 
Author of our being, the Father of angels and men, as our 
Creator and Preserver: we might have said, ‘“‘O Lord our 
Governor, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!’ But 
we could not have loved him under the nearest and dearest 
relation, ‘‘as delivering up his Son for us all.”” We might 
have loved the Son of God, as being the “ brightness of his — 
Father’s glory, the express image of his person”: (although 
this ground seems to belong rather to the inhabitants of 
heaven than earth.) But we could not have loved him as 
“bearing our sins in his own body on the tree,” and ‘by 
that one oblation of himself once offered, making a full 
oblation, sacrifice, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole 
world.” We could not have been “made conformable to his 
death,” nor ‘‘have known the power of his resurrection.” 
We could not have loved the Holy Ghost as revealing to us 
the Father and the Son, as opening the eyes of our under- 
standing, bringing us out of darkness into his marvellous 
light, renewing the image of God in our soul, and sealing us 
unto the day of redemption. So that, in truth, what is now 
“in the sight of God, even the Father,” not of fallible men, 
“‘nure religion and undefiled,’ would then have had no 
being: inasmuch as it wholly depends on those grand prin- 
ciples, ‘“‘ By grace ye are saved through faith:” and “ Jesus 


86 JOHN WESLEY. 


Christ is of God made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, 
and sanctification, and redemption.” 

We see then what unspeakable advantage we derive from 
the fall of our first parent, with regard to faith: faith both 
in God the Father, who spared not his own Son, his only 
Son, but ‘‘wounded him for our transgressions,’ and 
‘bruised him for our iniquities:’’ and in God the Son, who 
poured out his soul for us transgressors, and washed us in 
his own blood. We see what advantage we derive therefrom 
with regard to the love of God, both of God the Father, 
and God the Son. The chief ground of this love, as long 
as we remain in the body, is plainly declared by the Apostle, 
‘“‘ We love him, because he first loved us.” But the greatest 
instance of his love had never been given, if Adam had not 
fallen. ; 

And as our faith, both in God the Father and the Son, 
receives an unspeakable increase, if not its very being, from 
this grand event, as does also our love both of the Father 
and the Son: so does the love of our neighbor also, our 
benevolence to all mankind: which cannot but increase in 
the same proportion with our faith and love of God. For 
who does not apprehend the force of that inference drawn 
by the loving Apostle, ‘‘ Beloved, if God so loved us, we 
ought also to love one another.” If God so loved us— 
observe, the stress of the argument lies on this very point: 
so loved us! as to deliver up his only Son to die a cursed 
death for our salvation. ‘‘ Beloved, what manner of love is 
this,”’ wherewith God hath loved us? So as to give his only 
Son! In glory equal with the Father: in majesty co- 
eternal! What manner of love is this wherewith the only 
begotten Son of God hath loved us, as to empty himself, as 
far as possible, of his eternal Godhead; as to divest him- 
self of that glory, which he had with the Father before the 
world began; as to ‘‘take upon him the form of a servant, 
being found in fashion as a man!” And then to humble 


GOD’S- LOVE T0 FALLEN NAN. 87 


himself still further, ‘being obedient unto death, even the 
death of the cross!’ If God so loved us, how ought we to 
love one another? But this motive to brotherly love had 
been totally wanting, if Adam had not fallen. Consequently 
we could not then have loved one another in so high a degree 
aswe may now. Nor could there have been that height and 
depth in the command of our pels 0s Lord, “As I have 
loved you, so love one another.’ 

Such gainers may we be by Adam’s fall, with fener both 
to the love of God and of our Heian: But there is 
another grand point, which, though little adverted to, de- 
serves our deepest consideration. By that one act of our 
first parent, not only “sin entered into the world,” but pain 
also, and was alike entailed on his whole posterity. And 
herein appeared, not only the justice, but the unspeakable 
goodness of God. For how much good does he continually 
bring out of this evil! Wow much holiness and happiness 
out of pain! 

How innumerable are the benefits which God conveys to 
the children of men through the channel of sufferings! So 
that it might well be said, “‘ What are termed afflictions in 
the language of men, are in the language of God styled 
blessings.” Indeed had there been no suffering in the world, 
a considerable part of religion, yea, and in some respects, 
the most excellent part, could have had no place therein: 
since the very existence of it depends on our suffering: so 
that had there been no pain, it could have had no being. 
Upon this foundation, even our suffering, it is evident all 
our passive graces are built; yea, the noblest of all Chris- 
tian graces, love enduring all things. Here is the ground for 
resignation to God, enabling us to say from the heart, in 
every trying hour, “It is the Lord: let him do what seemeth 
him good.” ‘Shall we receive good at the hand of the 
Lord, and shall we not receive evil?” And what a glorious 
spectacle is this? Did it not constrain even a heathen to 


88 JOHN WESLEY. 


cry out, “ Hece spectaculum Deo_dignum! See a sight 
worthy of God: a good man struggling with adversity, and 
superior to it.” Here is the ground for confidence in God, 
both with regard to what we feel, and with regard to what 
we should fear, were it not that our soul is calmly stayed on 
him. What room could there be for trust in God, if there 
was no such thing as pain or danger? Who might not say 
then, “‘ The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not 
drink it?’ It is by sufferings that our faith is tried, and, 
therefore, made more acceptable to God. It is in the day 
of trouble that we have occasion to say, ‘‘ Though he slay 
me, yet will I trust in him.” And this is well pleasing to 
God, that we should own him in the face of danger; in 
defiance of sorrow, sickness, pain, or death. 

Again: Had there been neither natural nor moral evil 
in the world, what must have become of patience, meekness, 
gentleness, long-suffering? It is manifest they could have 
had no being: seeing all these have evil for their object. 
If, therefore, evil had never entered into the world, neither 
could these have had any place in it. For who could have 
returned good for evil, had there been no evil-doer in the 
universe? How had it been possible, on that supposition, 
to overcome evil with good? Will you say, ‘‘ But all these 
graces might have been divinely infused into the hearts of 
men.’ Undoubtedly they might: but if they had, there 
would have been no use or exercise for them. Whereas in 
the present state of things we can never long want occasion 
to exercise them. And the more they are exercised, the 
more all our graces are strengthened and increased. And 
in the same proportion as our resignation, our confidence in 
God, our patience and fortitude, our meekness, gentleness, 
and long-suffering, together with our faith and love of God 
and man increase, must our happiness increase, even in the 
present world. ; 

Yet again: As God’s permission of Adam’s fall gave all 


GOD’S LOVE TO FALLEN MAN. 89 


his posterity a thousand opportunities of suffering, and 
thereby of exercising all those passive graces which increase 
both their holiness and happiness: so it gives them opportu- 
nities of doing good in numberless instances, of exercising 
themselves in various good works, which otherwise could 
have had no being. And what exertions of benevolence, 
of compassion, of godlike mercy, had then been totally pre- 
vented! Who could then have said to the lover of men, 


“Thy mind throughout my life be shown, 
While listening to the wretches’ cry, 
The widow’s or the orphan’s groan ; 
On mercy’s wings I swiftly fly, 
The poor and needy to relieve ; 
Myself, my all, for them to give ?” 


It is the just observation of a benevolent man, 


—-—-“ All worldly joys are less, 
Than that one joy of doing kindnesses.” 


Surely in keeping this commandment, if no other, there is 
great reward. ‘“ As we have time, let us do good unto all 
men ;’’ good of every kind: and in every degree. Accord- 
ingly the more good we do (other circumstances being equal), 
the happier we shall be. The more we deal our bread to the 
hungry, and cover the naked with garments; the more we 
relieve the stranger, and visit them that are sick or in 
prison: the more kind offices we do to those that groan 
under the various evils of human life: the more comfort we 
receive even in the present world; the greater the recom- 
pense we have in our own bosom. 

To sum up what has been said under this head: As the 
-more holy we are upon earth, the more happy we must be 
(seeing there is an inseparable connection between holiness 
and happiness); as the more good we do to others, the more 
of present reward redounds into our own bosom: even as 
our sufferings for God lead us to rejoice in him “ with joy 


90 JOHN WESLEY. 


unspeakable and full of glory :’’ therefore, the fall of Adam, 
First, by giving us an opportunity of being far more holy ; 
Secondly, by giving us the occasions of doing innumerable 
good works, which otherwise could not have been done; and, 
Thirdly, by putting it into our power to suffer for God, 
whereby “‘the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon us:” 
may be of such advantage to the children of men, even in 
the present life, as they will not thoroughly comprehend till 
they attain life everlasting. 

It is then we shall be enabled fully to comprehend, not 
only the advantages which accrue at the present time to the 
sons of men by the fall of their first Parent, but the in- 
finitely greater advantages which they may reap from it in 
eternity. In order to form some conception of this, we may 
remember the observation of the Apostle, ‘As one star 
differeth from another star in glory, so also is the resurrec- 
tion of the dead.” The most glorious stars will undoubtedly 
be those who are the most holy ; who bear most of that image 
of God wherein they were created. The next in glory to 
these will be those who have been most abundant in good 
works: and next to them, those that have suffered most, 


according to the will of God. But what advantages in every 


one of these respects, will the children of God receive in 
heaven, by God’s permitting the introduction of pain upon 
earth, in consequence of sin? By occasion of this they 
attained many holy tempers, which otherwise could have 
had no being: resignation to God, confidence in him in times 
of trouble and danger, patience, meekness, gentleness, long- 
suffering, and the whole train of passive virtues. And on 
account of this superior holiness they will then enjoy supe- 
rior happiness. Again: every one will then “receive his 
own reward, according to his own labor.’’ Every individual 
will be “rewarded according to his work.” But the fall 
gave rise to innumerable good works, which could otherwise 
never have existed, such as ministering to the necessities 


GOD’S LOVE TO FALLEN MAN. 91 


of the saints, yea, relieving the distressed in every kind. 
And hereby innumerable stars will be added to their eternal 
crown. Yet again: there will be an abundant reward in 
heaven, for suffering, as well as for doing, the will of God: 
“these light afflictions, which are but for a moment, work 
out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.”’ 
Therefore that event, which occasioned the entrance of 
suffering into the world, has thereby occasioned, to all the 
children of God, an increase of glory to all eternity. For 
although the sufferings themselves will be at an end: although 


“The pain of life shall then be o’er, 
The anguish and distracting care ; 
The sighing grief shall weep no more; 
And sin shall never enter there ;’’— 


yet the joys occasioned -thereby shall never end, but flow at 
God’s right hand for evermore. 

There is one advantage more that we reap from Adam’s 
fall, which is not unworthy our attention. Unless in Adam 
all had died, being in the loins of their first Parent, every 
descendant of Adam, every child of man, must have person- 
ally answered for himself to God: it seems to be a necessary 
consequence of this, that if he had once fallen, once violated 
any command of God, there would have been no possibility 
of his rising again; there was no help, but he must have 
perished without remedy. For that Covenant knew not to 
show mercy: the word was, ‘‘ The soul that sinneth, it shall 
die.” Now who would not rather be on the footing. he is 
now; under a covenant of mercy? Who would wish to 
hazard a whole eternity upon one stake? Is it not infinitely 
more desirable, to be in a state wherein, though encompassed 
with infirmities, yet we do not run such a desperate risk, 
but if we fall, we may rise again? Wherein we may say, 


‘« My trespass is grown up to heaven! 
But, far above the skies, 
In Christ abundantly forgiven, 
I see thy mercies rise!”’ 


92 JOHN WESLEY. 


In Christ! Let me entreat every serious person, once 
more to fix his attention here. All that has been said, all 
that can be said, on these subjects, centres in this point. 
The fall of Adam produced the death of Christ! Hear, 
O heavens, and give ear, O earth! Yea, 


“‘ Let earth and heaven agree, 
Angels and men be joined, 
To celebrate with me 
The Saviour of mankind ; 
To adore the all-atoning Lamb, 
And bless the sound of Jesv’s Name!” 


If God had prevented the fall of man,-Zhe Word had never 
been made flesh: nor had we ever “seen his glory, the glory 
as of the only begotten of the Father.’ ‘Those mysteries 
had never been displayed, ‘‘ which the very angels desire to 
look into.” Methinks this consideration swallows up all the 
rest, and should never be out of our thoughts. Unless “ by 
one man, judgment had come upon all men to condemna- 
- tion,’ neither angels nor men could ever have known “the 
unsearchable riches of Christ.’’ | 

See then, upon the whole, how little reason we have to 
repine at the fall of our first Parent, since herefrom we may 
derive such unspeakable advantages, both in time and eter- 
nity. See how small pretence there is for questioning the 
mercy of God in permitting that event to take place! Since 
therein, mercy, by infinite degrees, rejoices over judgment ! 
Where, then, is the man that presumes to blame God, for 
not preventing Adam’s sin? Should we not rather bless him 
from the ground of the heart, for therein laying the grand 
scheme of man’s redemption, and making way for that 
glorious manifestation of his wisdom, holiness, justice, and 
mercy? If indeed God had decreed before the foundation 
of the world, that millions of men should dwell in ever- 
lasting burnings, because Adam sinned, hundreds or thou- 
sands of years before they had a being; I know not who 


* 


GOD’S LOVE TO FALLEN MAN. 93 


could thank him for this, unless the devil and his angels: 
seeing, on this supposition, all those millions of unhappy 
spirits would be plunged into hell by Adam’s sin, without 
any possible advantage from it. But, blessed be God, this 
is not the case. Such a decree never existed. On the con- 
trary, every one born of a woman, may be an unspeakable 
gainer thereby: and none ever was or can be a loser, but by 
his own choice. : 

We see here a full answer to that plausible account “ of 
the origin of evil,’’ published to the world some years since, 
and supposed to be unanswerable: that it ‘necessarily 
resulted from the nature of matter, which God was not able 
to alter.” It is very kind in this sweet-tongued orator to 
make an excuse for God! But there is really no occasion 
for it: God hath answered for himself. He made man in 
his own image, a spirit endued with understanding and 
liberty. Man abusing that liberty, produced evil; brought 
sin and pain into the world. This God permitted, in order 
to a fuller manifestation of his wisdom, justice, and mercy, 
by bestowing on all who would receive it an infinitely 
greater happiness than they could possibly have attained, 
if Adam had not fallen. 

**Q the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and know- 
ledge of God!” Although a thousand particulars of “his 
judgments, and of his ways are unsearchable”’ to us, and 
past our finding out, yet we may discern the general scheme, 
running through time into eternity. ‘According to the 
council of his own will,” the plan he had laid before the 
foundation of the world, he created the parent of all man- 
kind in his own image. And he permitted all men to be 
made sinners by the disobedience of this one man, that, by 
the obedience of one, all who receive the free gift, may be 
infinitely holier and happier to all eternity ! 


V1. 
THE BELIEVER’S PORTION IN CHRIST. 


McILVAINE. 

[Rr. Rev. Cuarztes Perrit McItyarne, D. D., D.C. L., president of 
the American Tract Society, was born at Burlington, New Jersey, Janu- 
ary 18th 1799. In his seventeenth year, he graduated at Nassau Hall, 
Princeton. From 1825 to 1827, he was chaplain and professor of ethics 
at West Point. While rector of St. Ann’s Church, Brooklyn, in 1831, 
he delivered in the University of New York a series of admirable lec- 
tures on the historical ‘‘ Evidences of Christianity.’’ In published form, 
these have had a deserved popularity at home and abroad. He was 
consecrated Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese 
of Ohio the following year. By speech and pen, he has ever allied 
himself with the whole Church of Christ, well saying: ‘‘ We drop our 
denomination uniform when we undress at the grave.’ Although 
now past threescore and ten, Bishop McIlvaine lately crossed the 
Atlantic to intercede with the Czar of Russia for the religious rights 
of his Protestant subjects. From a series of twenty-two of his dis- 
courses in ‘‘ The Truth and the Life,’’ we take .the following sermon, 
by permission. ] ) 


“ Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be par- ; 
takers of the inheritance of the saints in light.”’—Col. i. 12. 


It is as much the duty of the Christian to give thanks, as 
to pray, unto the Father. If we are commanded to “ pray 
without ceasing,’ we are also commanded ‘‘in everything to 
give thanks.” In everything, it is a great matter of thank- 
fulness, that we are permitted, enabled, and so graciously 
encouraged, to pray. “A sinner permitted to live under the 
invitations of the Gospel, instead of being condemned to 
live eternally where only the wrath of God abideth, can 
never in anything lack a theme of thanksgiving. But a 
sinner whose heart has been drawn by the grace of God to 


the embracing of the invitations of the Gospel; whose heart 
: (94) 





4 


Pret 


-% 





THE BELIEVER’S PORTION IN CHRIST. 95 


has been so changed by the power of God, that he is now 
made meet to be a partaker of the inheritance of the saints 
in light, having in that very condition of his heart, the 
indwelling earnest and witness of the Spirit that he will 
finally become a partaker in that glorious inheritance; he 
surely must in everything give thanks; no adversity, no 
affliction, must ever hide from his sight his boundless debt 
of praise, to the riches of the grace of God to his soul; all 
his life long, he must be so deeply sensible of the precious- 
ness of his hope in Christ, and of the wonderful mercy of 
God in bringing him thereto, out of the sinfulness and con- 
demnation of his unconverted state, as to make it his heart’s 
delight to give thanks unto the Father, who thus hath made 
him “‘ meet to be a partaker of the inheritance of the saints 
in light.” 

In considering the words of the text, let us attend: 

I. To the manner in which the future blessedness of the 
people of God is presented : an “‘ inheritance’’—“ the inherit- 
ance of the saints’’—“‘ the inheritance of the saints in light.” 

The portion of the people of God is an inheritance. They 
are called elsewhere, “heirs of salvation,” ‘heirs of the 
kingdom.” ‘* He that overcometh, shall enhertt all things.” 
Christ will say to his people in the last day: ‘Inherit the 
kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” 

Now there is a great Gospel truth contained in this word 
inheritance. It teaches that the future portion of the right- 
eous, is not their purchase. They do not obtain it on the 
basis of merit, but of relationship. They do not make them- 
selves heirs; but they are made heirs by the will and favor 
of their Heavenly Father. A father makes a son his heir, 
not because the son has merited the inheritance, but because 
he is a son, a dear son. Thus it is written: “The Spirit 
beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of 
God. And if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint 
heirs with Christ.”’ If children of God, then heirs of God— 


96 CHARLES P. McILVAINE, 


children by adoption, taken up out of a miserable beggary, 
and adopted as God’s dear children, and thus made inheritors 
of himself as our boundless portion. But this is not all: 
“joint heirs with Christ.” If God’s children, then Christ’s 
brethren; and in virtue of that union with Christ, we inherit 
jointly with him. In ourselves, we can have no title to the 
inheritance. In Christ, the only begotten Son of God, the 
sons, by adoption, have a most perfect, indefeasible title. 
He, in his mediatorial office, is “heir of all things.” We, 
in him, shall inherit all things. Thus it is that such glorious 
things are spoken of the future possession of his people. 
‘“‘T'o him that overcometh,” he saith, “I will grant to sit 
with me on my throne ;’’, not merely in my kingdom, but on 
my throne; not merely to share the blessings of my kingdom, 
but to share the glory of its king; my brethren in glory, my 
joint heirs in all that I inherit of my Father. Thus it is 
written, that ‘his people shall reign with him,” ‘shall be 
glorified together” with him, and that God doth make them 
“sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” In the 
last day, when our Lord shall be receiving his people to 
himself, his words to each will be, ‘ Enter thou into the joy 
of thy Lord,” into mine own joy, which thou dost inherit, 
because thou art in me and I in thee. And when he shall 
have thus gathered together all his beloved ones that believe 
in him, to be with him where he is, to be glorified with him 
and in him, then shall his own inheritance of joy be com- 
pleted in their salvation and blessedness—all having come, 
‘in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son 
of God, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of 
Christ.” 

And thus we see how much of the portion of the people 
of God in the world to come, is described, in its being called 
an inheritance. It teaches how that portion is all of grace; 
how it results simply from our having received “ the adoption 
of sons ;’”’ how necessary as the evidence of our title is “the 


THE BELIEVER’S PORTION IN CHRIST. 97 


spirit of adoption” in our hearts; and how, since our inherit- 
ance is a joint inheritance with that of Christ, we must look 
only to his merits for the title, and to a vital union with him 
through faith that we may share therein. It teaches, more- 
over, what St. Paul calls the ‘riches of the glory”’ of that 
inheritance. What description of riches of glory can exceed 
that of simply telling us we shall be “joint heirs with Christ ?” 

We have in the text another feature of the future bliss. 
It is called the “ inheritance of the saints.” 

The saints are the “sanctified in Christ Jesus.”’ To none 
else is the inheritance, and in that exclusiveness do we see 
much ‘of its excellence. It is thus an inheritance “ wnde- 
filed.” None are there but those whom God hath perfectly 
sanctified. All there have ‘the mind of Christ in its per- 
fectness.”” It is a Church which he hath sanctified and 
cleansed, ‘‘ that he might present it unto himself, a glorious 
Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing.” 
Sin enters not into that inheritance, sorrow goes not thither. 
Tears have no fountain there. ‘ No spot, nor wrinkle, nor 
any such thing’’ upon the white raiment of that holy fellow- 
‘ship. Holy ones made perfect are the only dwellers there. 
“The former things are passed away.” The Church of 
Christ will not then be as now, a church defiled; tied to a 
body of death ; the living mingled everywhere with the dead ; 
the Christian of a vital faith, and the Christian of a mere 
- lifeless form, united under the same profession of disciple- 
ship; the children of this world communing outwardly with 
the true, but imperfect family of God. Oh! no. Nor will 
the true Church be then so far defiled as to contain any such 
members as its best are in this life; holy indeed essentially, 
but so imperfectly holy; saints indeed, because truly sanc- 
tified in Christ Jesus—but saints conscious of coming so far 
short in holiness, that they seem to themselves to be all spot 
and wrinkle, and every such thing. All things will then 


have become new—not only as. being holy, but as being all 
4 G 


98 CHARLES P. McILVAINE. 


perfectly holy. ‘The spirits of just men made perfect,”’ is 
the description of that fellowship. Oh! it is precious to 
think of a heritage so excluding all unholiness. But it is 
most alarming for you, my hearers, in whom the work of 
holiness is not. commenced. | 5 

While however it is good to think of that inheritance as 
exclusive of all but saints, we love to think of it as inclusive 
of all that are saints. We drop our denomination uniform 
when we undress at the grave. It belongs to those things 
that are seen and are temporal. We enter into eternal life 
in no raiment but the white robe of Christ, which is the 
righteousness of all that are sanctified in him, and belongs 
to those things which are unseen and eternal. If it be neces- 
sary to this most imperfect state of the Church, that we 
should be divided as we now are; it is good to think of it as 
a humiliation which can last only while we are here. The 
grave will cover it with our corruptible bodies. The only 
name to be inquired for, in ascertaining the inheritors of 
Christ, is saints—the sanctified—those who have been born 
again of the Spirit of God, and are walking in newness of 
life. Bring them from the east, and west, and north, and. 
south—from all generations, from out of all divisions of the 
Christian family, from under any name, or form! Hach has 
his lot in'that good land. All inherit by the same title in 
Christ ; and therefore all ‘inherit all things.” In the 
poverty of earthly inheritances, the more one heir obtains, the 
less all others have. But in the fullness of the inheritance 
of the saints, each inherits all, as if there were no heir but 
himself—or rather because all inherit as one body in Christ. 
Oh! it is amost blessed heritage that shall assemble together 
in one most affectionate, holy household, such a boundless 
fellowship of the people of God, out of all nations, and 
kindreds, and tongues; all seeing eye to eye; all feeling 
heart to heart; all children of the same redeeming grace ; 
all brethren of the same wondrous adoption in Christ; all 


% 


THE BELIEVERS PORTION IN CHRIST. 99 


9? 


most glorious in his likeness; ‘‘the communion of saints 
in its perfectness; ‘‘the Catholic Church” in its fullness ; 
“the general assembly and Church of the first-born, whose 
names are written in heaven.” 

But there is another feature of the inheritance. It is the 
inheritance of the saints 7x light. In light! What so pure 
as perfect light ? Whence all the varied beauties of nature, 
but from light? Light is an expression for God himself, its 
Maker. ‘God is light.”’ It describes his people here; 
they are “children of light.” It describes their progressive 
advancement in grace; their path is pictured in scripture 
‘as the morning light which shineth more and more unto 
the perfect day.” And here it describes their future glory, 
when their path shall have reached meridian—the perfect 
day; they shall be saints in light. God is light; and they 
shall be like him, and see him as he is. 

But how shall we understand this description of the 
inheritance? I read it as having reference to the compa- 
rison between the perfect state of the saints in heaven, in 
point of spiritual knowledge, and their imperfect state while 
here on earth; just what the same Apostle referred to, when 
he said, ‘‘ Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face 
to face. Now we know in part; then shall we know even 
as we are known.” Now we see by aid of a glass—a reve- 
lation, an instrumental medium. We see at a distance, at 
second hand. <A thousand motes and mists hinder our vision 
of spiritual and eternal things. Constant vapors rise up 
from earth and our own evil natures, to obscure our vision. 
At best, we know but in part—nothing entirely; nor can we 
know how little we are capable of knowing of that boundless 

field. But then we shall see face to face, in open, boundless 
vision. We shall dwell with God, in the light which no man 
can now approach unto. We shall know without tuition, see 
without a medium, understand without interpreter—“ saints 


in light.” 


100 CHARLES P. McILVAINE. 


Thus I understand that description of the city of God in 
the Revelation of St. John. ‘The city had no need of the 
sun, neither of the moon to shine in it; for the glory of God 
did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.”’ 

God is light—its fountain, its fullness; and what need of 
lesser lights in heaven, when he is there? ‘They will need 
no sun nor moon; in other words, no intervening medium of 
communication from God to them. Their communion with 
“God and the Lamb”’ will be “face to face.”’ Mow, we do 
need the aid of the sun and moon—we depend upon second- 
ary lights. In this world we must walk by faith, not by 
sight, and must have the aid of means of grace. What are 
the ministers of the world; what the sacraments of the 
Church; what the revelation contained in the scriptures, 
but parts of a system of instrumental secondary lights, teach- 
ing us that we see not yet face to face; that however great 
our knowledge and privileges, compared with what they 
would have been without those aids; however sufficient and 
most precious our revelation for all the present necessities 
of the soul, we are far yet from the perfect day. Ministers, 
and sacramental signs, and a written inspired word, are 
marks of the Church in the wilderness. God is with her, 
but in the pillar of cloud. They are marks of a state of 
grace not yet complete. God is communicating with his 
people, but it is from behind the veil of the inner sanctuary. 
But the Church in glory will have no need of human minis- 
try, nor of visible signs of spiritual grace, nor of an inspired 
book, revealing, under the imperfections of human language, 
the things of the Spirit of God. The saints being “ heirs 
of God,” their portion will be therefore his fullness. God is — 
light—original, perfect, boundless light. They will com- 
mune directly with that light, that holiness, that truth, that 
infinite knowledge, that boundless wisdom. They will be 
saints in light, because saints in the full vision of God. In 
contemplating that blessed estate, Isaiah dipped his pen in 


THE BELIEVER’S PORTION IN CHRIST. 101 


the same effulgence as St. John, and wrote: ‘‘ The sun shall 
be no more thy light by day, neither shall the moon give 
light unto thee, but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlast- 
ing light, and thy God thy glory, and the days of thy 
mourning shall be ended.” How sweet that sentence, “the 
days of thy mourning shall be ended”! St. John’s account 
of it is: ‘God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.” 
We know not which description is the most engaging—that 
of the evangelical prophet, or of the prophetic evangelist ? 
Neither could speak of the light of that inheritance of the 
saints, without telling how it would banish all the sorrows 
which sin has brought upon our hearts, even to the drying 
up of the last tear ; just as all the remnants of night, even 
to the last drop of dew, are wiped from the face of nature 
by the radiance of the sun. 

But we must come to the second division of our discourse. 
St. Paul, in the text, unites with his fellow Christians in 
giving thanks unto the Father, because he had made them 
meet, or fit—qualified in Spirit, to be partakers of the 
inheritance of the saints. And from this we take our second 
head. | 

II. We cannot partake in that blessedness, unless we are 
first, by the transforming grace of God, in this present life, 
made meet for it. 

One would suppose it could hardly be needful to use many 
words to demonstrate so plain a truth. We really partake 
in nothing unless we are meet to be partakers. A sick man 
cannot partake in a sumptuous feast. It will not be a feast 
to him; he is not meet for it. A man without an ear attuned 
to musical sounds, may sit in the midst of the richest har- 
monies; but he cannot partake in them, however he may 
hear them. ‘Take a man of grovelling mind, and place him 
in a circle of the most refined and intellectual; bid him 
associate his mind with theirs. You might as well command 
the deaf to hear, or the blind to see. How irksome that 


102 CHARLES P. McILVAINE. 


company! You easily perceive the reason. His mind is 
- not fitted, his tastes are not qualified, for such privileges. 
Well, then, suppose I should find a little company of saints 
made perfect, come down from heaven, on some errand from 
God, to earth, and keeping here for a little while their end- 
less Sabbath of holiness and happiness, as they keep it in 
heaven; and suppose I should take a man of the world, such 
as we meet with everywhere—his affections all running upon 
earthly things, all confined to earthly things, and set him 
down in that circle, and say to him, ‘‘ Now, partake in their 
happiness. You think that all you need to make you happy 
hereafter, is only to be admitted to heaven. Try! Here 
is a little of heaven; join those blessed ones in their joys, in 
their sweet communion with God; in their overflowing love 
to Christ; in their praises to him that loved them, and 
washed them from their sins in his own blood, and hath made 
them kings and priests unto God.’’ Why, one might as well 
speak to the dead. Not a chord is there in his heart to 
harmonize with their joys. He is all strange in his sym- 
pathies to them, and they to him. How would he like to 
have nothing else but their company and their pleasures, 
with his own present dispositions, for ever and ever? What 
heaven would that be to him? His whole moral being must 
be changed, before he can be meet to partake with the saints 
of God on high in their holy blessedness. And so long as 
that change is not wrought, no decree of God is needed to 
shut him out of the presence of his glory, or the fellowship 
of the heavenly host. A decree powerful enough is written 
in the man’s own affections. His own heart excludes him. 
A mere title to heaven would not help him. What if he 
should even be allowed to come to the table of that heavenly 
feast? He could not partake. He would sit there all deaf, 
and dumb, and dead, amidst boundless life. 

My dear hearers, let us well understand what constitutes 


THE BELIEVER’S PORTION IN CHRIST. 108 


salvation. ‘Two things are essential, and both are brought 
to view in the connection of our text. St. Paul, speaking 
of Jesus, says: “‘In whom we have redemption through 
his blood, even the forgiveness of sins.” That is one of the 
two—forgiveness of sins. It opens the door to the habita- 
tion of the saints in light. Very precious, indeed, but it is 
not all. Then, in the text, we have those who have obtained 
the forgiveness of sins, that open door, now giving thanks 
for another thing, namely, that they have been made “ meet 
to be partakers of the inheritance”’ to which that door admits 
them. That is the second of the two great gifts which make 
up our salvation. The one removes the barrier on the side. 
of the broken law; the other, the barrier on the side of our 
own corrupt, carnal nature. The first is taken away in 
God’s being reconciled to us through the mediation of Christ. 
The second is taken away in our hearts being reconciled to 
God by the renewing of the Holy Ghost. They come in- 
separably. Neither is ever without the other. They come 
both out of the great sacrifice on the cross. Faith draws 
both together from him who “was wounded for our trans- 
gressions, and by whose stripes we are healed’’—“ the water 
and the blood.” Whom God justifies, he also sanctifies. In 
whom these two are united, the forgiveness of sins and the 
meetness for the inheritance, in them is salvation. They are 
* saints. In whom both are perfected, salvation is consum- 
mated. ‘They are saznts made perfect. * 

But what is that meetness for the inheritance of the 
saints? It is surely :keness to the inheritance. It is con- 
formity of our affections to the nature of the blessedness. 
Is that blessedness the presence and glory of God? Then 
the meetness for it is to be holy, since God is holy. Is it a 
joint inheritance with Christ? Then to be meet for it, is to 
be like Christ; to have his mind in us, that his joy may be 
in us. It is to be assimilated to him in our affections, that 


104 CHARLES P. McILVAINE. 


we may be associated with him in his heritage. It is to be 
not of the world, even as he is not of the world. It is to 
have our affections set on things above, ‘‘ where Christ sitteth 
on the right hand of God.” It is to be “dead indeed unto 
sin, and alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” 
It is to love the will and service of God as our present hap- 
piness; to know by our present experience the sweetness of 
communion with him as his own children; to have such a 
sense of the preciousness of Christ to our souls, that we can 
participate with some degree of real consciousness in that 
declaration of the early believers: ‘‘ Whom, having not seen, 
we love; in whom though now we see him not, yet believing, 
we rejoice, with joy unspeakable, and full of glory.” 

Vast, indeed, is the difference between that meetness for 
the inheritance which believers in their highest sanctification, 
this side the grave, possess, and that of those who have now 
entered into possession. It seems, indeed, that it must take 
a mighty work of grace to make any. Christian now on earth, 
with all our infirmities and remaining sinfulness, capable of 
the presence of God in his manifested glory. So it must, 
unquestionably. The eye that has never seen “ the things 
of the Spirit of God” but “through a glass darkly,” must 
needs undergo a mighty change of capacity before it is capa- 
ble of looking on all those wonderful and glorious mysteries, 
face to face. The heart that has never communed with the 
holiness and majesty of God, but on this side the veil, must 
needs be prepared with a vast measure of new adaptation 
before it can bear to be introduced to the presence of that 
unveiled, infinite holiness and glory, on which even the 
seraphim look not with open face. 

But the change required is only like that of a child that 
is now meet essentially for the inheritance of his father, 
because he is a true child, with all the faculties of a child; 
but who must attain to manhood, and have all those faculties 


TRE BELIEVER’S PORTION IN CHRIST. 105 


matured, before he can be ready to enter into full possession 
of the inheritance. What would you say of the meetness of 
an infant to possess, and manage, and enjoy, a magnificent 
estate inherited from his father? But in one most import- 
ant sense that infant ismeet. He has the mind—he has the 
faculties. All he wants is, their development, their ripening, 
their manhood. ‘The essential preparation he has. It is 
only the perfecting he needs. You have not to change what 
he is, but simply to mature it. 

And thus we understand the present meetness of the 
Christian in the imperfectness of his earthly state, for the 
presence of the glory of God in heaven. What though but 
the youngest child in grace, however old in years—just 
born again of the Spirit—just beginning the experience 
of newness of life—every affection and faculty of his 
heart in infant feebleness, but all nevertheless in living 
reality? Great indeed is the growth he must make, now 
that he has just opened his eyes upon such light as comes 
to us here in this moonlight night, before he can be qualified 
for the light of that city, where moon and sun are invisible 
by reason of the light of the unveiled countenance of God. 

But still we can join that child in grace in giving thanks 
unto the Father who hath (already) made him “meet to be 
a partaker with the saints in light.”” He is meet, because 
he is God’s regenerate and adopted child. He is meet, 
because he has all the mind, and heart, and sympathies, and 
relations, of a child of God. He is meet, essentially, though 
not maturely. ‘The time to enter upon the inheritance has 
not yet come. He who has now given him the spirit of 
adoption, and made him his child, when that time does come, 
will give him the spirit, and stature, and perfectness, of a 
full-grown son, that he may inherit the kingdom prepared 
for him. As his day, so shall his grace be. Meanwhile, 
his calling is that of a child of God in minority and pupilage ; 
to see the inheritance only in reversion, and in the distance ; 


106 CHARLES P. McILVAINE. 


to live in the hope of it, and to be educated for it; and God 
giveth him grace for that need. When his calling shall be 
to go hence from the nursery of spiritual childhood, and take 
his place in the full citizenship of ‘the commonwealth of 
Israel ;”’ to stand in the General Assembly and Church of 
the First-born”’ in heaven; to minister as one of the “royal 
priesthood” in the immediate presence of the Majesty on 
High, then also shall his grace be as his day. His meetness 
will grow with his privilege. When God shall take him to 
the highest place, he will bring forth the best robe and put 
it on him. 

Oh! but what a difference there is between the change 
which that child of God must undergo to make his present 
feebleness of holy attainment meet for the fullness of the 
future inheritance; and, on the other hand, the change that 
must take place in-that man, in.whom not a feature, not an 
affection, not a sympathy, not a faculty, of the child of God 
has ever found a place! In the former case, it is only a 
change from morning to noon—the day is the same. It is 
only a transition from the child to the man; the being is 
the same. But in the latter, it must be a change from night 
to day, from death to life; from the man who is in no sense 
a child of God, to the man who is in everything his living, 
- loving child. In the former case, death is the certain intro- 
duction to the full completion of the glorious advancement. 
In the latter, death, finding the essential change not made, 
sets the seal to the certainty of its never being made to all 
eternity. 

And now, would you be told how that meetness for the 
inheritance of the saints is obtained? I answer, it is no 
endowment of our natural state. All the meetness of this 
fallen and depraved nature of ours is for the inheritance of 
the unholy in darkness everlasting. The mind that is in 
man by nature, and the mind that is in the wicked and lost 
in hell, is essentially the same mind; just as the mind of 


THE BELIEVER’S PORTION IN CHRIST. 107 


the Christian here, and of the saint with God, is essentially 
the same. I doubt not there is an awful maturity of 
wickedness in hell, for which the unregenerate in this 
world are not prepared in point of present growth. It would 
shock them, were it now seen by the worst of them: just as 
in “the brightness of the Father’s glory,” as seen by the 
saints in light, there is a manifestation for which the regen- 
erate on earth, in point of maturity of grace, are not meet. 
But in every unregenerate man here, there is “the carnal 
mind,” which “is enmity against God, and is not subject to 
the law of God, neither indeed can be.’’ That is all that is 
needed. ‘The meetness for the fellowship of the lost is thus 
in him essentially. It needs but development. Change of 
worlds, from a place of hope to a prison of despair; from a 
condition of a thousand corrective and restraining influences, 
to one where none exist, and where every pent-up corrup- 
tion of the heart is set loose, and set on fire, to range and 
rage without limit—such change will soon consummate the 
meetness of a lost soul, for all the wickedness and misery of 
the outer darkness. 

Do you ask again, whence comes that essential meetness 
for the inheritance of the saints, which I have described as 
the possession of every child of God in this world? The 
answer is in our text. St. Paul, with his fellow-Christians, 
said, “‘ Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us 
meet,’ &c. They ascribed all they had of preparation for 
‘the inheritance, to the power of God. He made them what 
they were, as Christians. ‘‘ We are his workmanship (they 
said), created in Christ Jesus.” 

So mighty a change as that which forms out of such a 
being as man, in all the depravity of his natural heart, a 
being meet to associate with Christ and his saints, they could 
ascribe to no power less than God’s. He who created man 
originally in his own likeness, that he might qualify him for 


108 CHARLES P. McILVAINE. 


his own fellowship, now that we have lost that likeness, must 
by the same power create us anew, or we cannot be heirs of 
God. Hence that strong declaration, “If any man be in 
Christ ;” if out of all mankind there be a true Christian, a 
child of God, a joint heir with Christ, ‘‘ he is a new creature.” 
The work that made him what he is, was a new creation. 
The power that made him what he is, was the power that 
created the heavens and the earth. 

Of the like testimony are these joyful words of St. Peter: 
‘¢ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
who, according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again 
into a lively hope, to an inheritance incorruptible, and unde- 
filed, and that fadeth not away.”” What prepared them for 
such an inheritance? They were ‘“ begotten again.” Who 
accomplished that new birth in them? ‘The Ged and Father 
of our Lord Jesus Christ,” in his-abundant mercy. That 
new birth made them his children. ‘That relation of children 
connected them with the inheritance. ‘If children, then 
heirs.’ Invert this sentence and it will be equally true and 
important—lIf heirs, then children. Add—If children, then 
begotten again by the Spirit of God. Add further—If not 
so begotten again, then ye cannot see the kingdom of God. 

Oh, what alarming conclusions necessarily follow from all 
we have said, in regard to the hopelessness of those of you, 
my hearers, in whom no such inward, transforming work of 
grace is found! How painful to be obliged to draw such 
lines of exclusion from the blessed heritage in prospect! But 
we have this alleviation and comfort, that the line is not yet 
so drawn as never to be crossed. You that find it marking 
you off from the fellowship of the kingdom, you may cross it 
yet, if you will strive; the hand of God is outstretched to 
lift you over when you strive. And it is by this painful 
plainness in drawing that line before you, and showing where 
it places you, that we hope, by the blessing of the Holy 


THE BELIEVER’S PORTION IN CHRIST. 109 


Ghost, to contribute to the raising up of a fixed determina- 
tion in your hearts, that by the grace of God you will over- 
pass it, and so gain a place among the inheritors of life. 

- But what precious encouragement and assurance there is 
in all we have said, to those who, having the love of God in 
them, and habitually loving his ways, are thus prepared 
essentially to be with him in glory! Their pleasure of heart 
in his word and worship, and whole service; their love of 
holiness, and earnestness to have more holiness, is ‘ the ear- 
nest of the Spirit.’’ It witnesses with their spirit, that they 
are children, and therefore heirs of God. The Lord “ gives 
grace and glory;” glory, the maturity of grace; grace, the 
promise and preparation for glory; both where there is 
either. The one, the first fruits of the Spirit; the other, 
the fullness of the ripe harvest of grace. As sure as we 
have now the one, we shall hereafter possess the other. The 
heart that ascends to God amid the infirmities of the flesh, 
will go to God when the flesh shall encumber it no more. To 
be meet for the inheritance, is the assurance of obtaining it. 
He that fashions you for it, will certainly take you to it. 
Then be joyful in God, and praise him for the riches of his 
grace! So run that ye may obtain. So seek that ye may 
find. So press toward the mark of the prize, that ye may 
be sure of the blessedness promised to him that endureth to 
the end. Amen. 


ps bab: 
ON THE LORD’S PRAYER. 


AUGUSTINE. 


[Avre.ius Augustine, the chief of the Latin Fathers, was born in 
Numidia, a province of North Africa, a. p. 364. His youth was 
stained by dissipation, and his mind was clouded by the vagaries of 
heathen philosophy. Thanks to the prayers of his devout mother, 
and the teaching of Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, he became a Christian 
at the age of twenty-three. Four years later he was ordained a priest, 
and in 395 was consecrated Bishop of Hippo. Till his death, in 430, 
he faithfully defended evangelic truth. His temperament was ardent, 
his intellect keen and speculative, his exhortations earnest and thrill- 
ing, marked by-a child-like tenderness and simplicity. ‘On the City 
of God,” an elaborate defence of Christianity from the attacks of 
Paganism, is his masterpiece. Although not greatly learned, Au- 
gustine has indelibly stamped his theology on the Church. Our 
selection, from “‘ Homilies on the New Testament,’’ was preached to — 
the Competentes, or ‘‘ Seekers for Baptism.’ These discourses were 
reported, as delivered, by short-hand writers, and are now published 
in English in Parker’s “ Library of the Fathers.” | 


“Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom 
come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this 
day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our 
debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” 
—Matt. vi. 9-15. 


THE order established for your edification requires that 
ye learn first what to believe, and afterwards what to ask. 
For so saith the Apostle, ‘‘ Whosoever shall call upon the 
Name of the Lord, shall be saved.” ‘This testimony blessed 
Paul cited out of the Prophet; for by the Prophet were 
those times foretold, when all men should call upon God; 
‘¢ Whosoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord, shall be 
saved.” And he added, ‘‘ How then shall they call on Him 


in whom they have not believed? And how shall they 
(110) 


ON THE LORD’S PRAYER, 111 


believe in Him of whom they have not heard? Or how 
shall they hear without a preacher? Or how shall they 
preach except they be sent?’ Therefore were preachers 
sent. They preached Christ. As they preached, the people 
heard, by hearing they believed, and by believing called 
upon Him. Because then it was most rightly and most 
truly said, “‘ How shall they call on Him in whom they 
have not believed ?’’ therefore have ye first learned what to 
believe: and to-day have learnt to call on Him in whom ye 
have believed. : 

The Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, hath taught us 
a Prayer; and though He be the Lord himself, as ye have 
heard and repeated in the Creed, the Only Son of God, yet 
He would not be alone. He is the Only Son, and yet would 
not be alone; He hath vouchsafed to have brethren. For 
to whom doth He say, ‘‘Say, Our Father, which art in 
heaven ?’’ Whom did He wish us to call our Father, save 
His own Father? Did He grudge us this? Parents some- 
times when they have gotten one, or two, or three children, 
fear to give birth to any more, lest they reduce the rest to 
beggary. But because the inheritance which He promised 
us is such as many may possess, and no one be straitened ; 
therefore hath He called into His brotherhood the peoples 
of the nations; and the Only Son hath numberless brethren ; 
who say, ‘Our Father, which art in heaven.” So said 
they who have been before us; and so shall say those who 
will come after us. See how many brethren the Only Son 
hath in His grace, sharing His inheritance with those for 
whom He suffered death. We had a father and mother on 
earth, that we might be born to labors and to death: but 
we have found other parents, God our Father, and the 
Church our Mother, by whom we are born unto life eternal. 
Let us then consider, beloved, whose children we have 
begun to be; and let us live so as becomes those who have 


112 AURELIUS AUGUSTINE. 


such a Father. See, how that our Creator hath conde- 
scended to be our Father! 

We have heard whom we ought to call upon, and with 
what hope of an eternal inheritance we have begun to have 
a Father in heaven; let us now hear what we must ask of 
Him. Of such a Father what shall we ask? Do we not 
ask rain of Him, to-day, and yesterday, and the day before ? 
This is no great thing to have asked of such a Father, and 
yet ye see with what sighings, and with what great desire 
we ask for rain, when death is feared,—when that is feared 
which none can escape. For sooner or later every man 
must die, and we groan, and pray, and travail in pain, and 
cry to God, that we may die a little later. How much 
more ought we to cry to Him, that we may come to that 
place where we shall never die! 

Therefore is it said, “‘ Hallowed be Thy Name.” This we 
also ask of Him that His Name may be hallowed in us; for 
Holy is it always. And how is His Name hallowed in us, 
except while it makes us holy? For once we were not holy, 
and we are made holy by His Name; but He is always 
Holy, and His Name always Holy. It is for ourselves, not 
for God, that we pray. For we do not wish well to God, to 
whom no ill can ever happen. But we wish what is good 
for ourselves, that His Holy Name may be hallowed, that 
that which is always Holy, may be hallowed in us. 

‘Thy kingdom come.” Come it surely will, whether we 
ask or no. Indeed, God hath an eternal kingdom. For 
when did He not reign? When did He begin to reign? 
For His kingdom hath no beginning, neither shall it have 
any end. But that ye may know that in this prayer also 
we pray for ourselves, and not for God (for we do not say, 
“Thy kingdom come,’’ as though we were asking that God 
may reign); we shall be ourselves His kingdom, if believing 
in Him we make progress in this faith. All the faithful, 
redeemed by the Blood of His Only Son, will be His king- 


ON THE LORD’S PRAYER. 113 


dom. And this His kingdom will come, when the resurrec- 
tion of the dead shall have taken place; for then He will 
come himself. And when the dead are risen, He will divide 
them, as He himself saith, ‘‘and He shall set some on the 
right hand, and some on the left.’’ ‘To those who shall be 
on the right hand He will say, ‘‘ Come, ye blessed of My 
Father, receive the kingdom.” This is what we wish and 
pray for when we say, ‘‘ Thy kingdom come;’’ that it may 
come to us. For if we shall be reprobates, that kingdom 
will come to others, but not to us. But if we shall be of 
that number, who belong to the members of His Only- 
begotten Son, His kingdom will come to us, and will not 
tarry. Jor are there as many ages yet remaining, as have 
already passed away? The Apostle John hath said, ‘“ My 
little children, it is the last hour.”” But itis a long hour 
proportioned to this long day; and see how many years this 
last hour lasteth. But nevertheless, be ye as those who 
watch, and so sleep, and rise again, and reign. Let us 
watch now, let us sleep in death; at the end we shall rise 
again, and shall reign without end. 

‘Thy will be done as in heaven, so in earth.” The third 
thing we pray for is, that His will may be done as in heaven 
so in earth. And in this too we wish well for ourselves. 
For the will of God must necessarily be done. It is the 
will of God that the good should reign, and the wicked be 
damned. Is it possible that this will should not be done? 
But what good do we wish for ourselves, when we say, ‘“‘ Thy 
will be done as in heaven, so in earth?’ Give ear. For 
this petition may be understood in many ways, and many 
things are to be in our thoughts in. this petition, when we 
pray God, “‘Thy will be done as in heaven, so in earth.” 
As Thy Angels offend Thee not, so may we also not offend 
Thee. Again, how is “Thy will be done as in heaven, so 
in earth,” understood? All the holy Patriarchs, all the 
Prophets, all the Apostles, all the spiritual are as it were 

; H 


114 AURELIUS AUGUSTINE. 


God’s heaven; and we in comparison of them are earth. 
‘“‘Thy will be done as in heaven, so in earth;’’ as in them, 
so in us also. Again, ‘‘ Thy will be done as in heaven, so 
in earth;’’ the Church of God is heaven, His enemies are 
earth. So we wish well for our enemies, that they too may 
believe and become Christians, and so the will of God be 
done as in heaven, so also in earth. Again, “‘ Thy will be 
done as in heaven, so in earth.’’ Our spirit is heaven, and 
the flesh earth. As our spirit is renewed by believing, so 
may our flesh be renewed by rising again; and “the will of 
God be done as in heaven, so in earth.” Again, our mind 
whereby we see truth, and delight in this truth, is heaven ; 
as, ‘I delight in the law of God, after the inward man.” 
What is the earth? “I see another law in my members, 
warring against the law of my mind?’’ When this strife 
shall have passed away, and a full concord be brought about 
of the flesh and spirit, the will of God will be done as in 
heaven, so also in earth. When we repeat this petition, let 
us think of all these things, and ask them all of the Father. 
Now all these things which we have mentioned, these three 
petitions, beloved, have respect to the life eternal. For if 
the Name of our God is sanctified in us, it will be for 
eternity. If His kingdom come, where we shall live for 
ever, it will be for eternity. If His will be done as in 
heaven, so in earth, in all the ways which I have explained, 
it will be for eternity. ; 

There remain now the petitions for this life of our pil- 
grimage; therefore follows, “‘Give us this day our daily 
bread.”’ Give us eternal things, give us things temporal. 
Thou hast promised a kingdom, deny us not the means of 
subsistence. ‘Thou wilt give everlasting glory with Thyself 
hereafter, give us in this earth temporal support. Therefore 
is it day by day, and to-day, that is, in this present time. 
For when this life shall have passed away, shall we ask for 
daily bread then? For then it will not be called, day by 


ON DHE NORD? S PR AY £& R. 115 


day, but to-day. Now it is called, day by day, when one 
day passes away, and another day succeeds. Will it be 
called, day by day, when there will be one eternal day? 
This petition for daily bread is doubtless to be understood 
in two ways, both for the necessary supply of our bodily 
food, and for the necessities of our spiritual support. There 
is a necessary supply of bodily food, for the preservation 
of our daily life, without which we cannot live. This is 
food and clothing, but the whole is understood in a part. 
When we ask for bread, we thereby understand all things. 
There is a spiritual food also which the faithful know, which 
ye too will know when ye shall receive it at the altar of 
God. This also is ‘daily Bread,’’ necessary only for this 
life. For shall we receive the Eucharist when we shall 
have come to Christ Himself, and begun to reign with Him 
for ever? So then the Eucharist is our daily bread; but 
let us in such wise receive it, that we be not refreshed in 
our bodies only, but in our souls. For the virtue which is 
apprehended there, is unity, that gathered together into His 
body, and made His members, we may be what we receive. 
Then will it be indeed our daily bread. Avain, what I am 
handling before you now is ‘daily bread;’’ and the daily 
lessons which ye hear in church, are daily bread, and the 
hymns ye hear and repeat are daily bread. For all these 
are necessary in our state of pilgrimage. But when we 
shall have got to heaven, shall we hear the word, we who 
shall see the Word himself, and hear the Word himself, 
and eat and drink Him as the angels do now? Do the 
angels need books, and interpreters, and readers? Surely 
not. They read in seeing, for the Truth itself they see, 
and aye abundantly satisfied from that fountain, from which 
we obtain some few drops. Therefore has it been said 
touching our daily bread, that this petition is necessary for 
us in this life. 

“Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” Is 


116 AURELIUS: AUGUSTINE. 


this necessary except in this life? For in the other we 
shall have no debts. For what are debts, but sins? See, 
ye are on the point of being baptized, then all your sins 
will be blotted out, none whatever will remain. Whatever 
evil ye have ever done, in deed, or word, or desire, or 
thought, all will be blotted out. And yet if in the life 
which is after Baptism there were security from sin, we 
should not learn such a prayer as this, ‘ Forgive us our 
debts.” Only let us by all means do what comes next, ‘* As 
we forgive our debtors.’”” Do ye then who are about to 
enter in to receive a plenary and entire remission of your 
debts, do ye above all things see that ye have nothing in 
your hearts against any other, so as to come forth from 
Baptism secure, as it were free and discharged of all debts, 
and then begin to purpose to avenge yourselves on your 
enemiés, who in time past have done you wrong. Forgive, 
as ye are forgiven. God can do no one wrong, and yet He 
forgiveth who oweth nothing. How then ought he to for- 
give who is himself forgiven, when He forgiveth all who 
oweth nothing that can be forgiven Him ? 

‘‘Lead us not‘into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” 
Will this again be necessary in the life to come? ‘ Lead 
us not into temptation,” will not be said except where there 
can be temptation. We read in the book of holy Job, “Is 
not the life of man upon earth a temptation?’ What then 
do we pray for? Hear what. , The Apostle James saith, 
‘Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of 
God.” He spoke of those evil temptations whereby men 
are deceived, and brought under the yoke of the devil. 
This is the kind of temptation he spoke of. For there is 
another sort of temptation which is called a proving; of 
this kind of temptation it is written, “The Lord your God 
tempteth (proveth) you to know whether ye love Him.” 
What means “to know?” ‘To make you know,” for He 
knoweth already. With that kind of temptation whereby 


ON THE LORD’S PRAYER. 117 


we are deceived and seduced, God tempteth no man. But 
undoubtedly in His deep and hidden judgment He abandons 
some. And when He hath abandoned them, the tempter 
finds his opportunity. For he finds in him no resistance 
against his power, but forthwith presents himself to him as 
his possessor, if God abandon him. Therefore that He may 
not abandon us, do we say, ‘“‘ Lead us not into temptation.” 
*¢ For every one is tempted,” says the same Apostle James, 
“when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. Then 
lust, when it hath conceived, bringeth forth sin; and sin, 
when it is finished, bringeth forth death.” What then has 
he hereby taught us? To fight against our lusts. For ye 
are about to put away your sins in holy Baptism; but lusts 
will still remain, wherewith ye must fight after that ye are 
regenerate. Tor a conflict with your own selves still 
remains. Let no enemy from without be feared: conquer 
thine own self, and the whole world is conquered. What 
can any tempter from without, whether the devil or the 
devil’s minister, do against thee? Whosoever sets the hope 
of gain before thee to seduce thee, let him only find no 
covetousness in thee; and what can he who would tempt 
thee by gain effect? Whereas if covetousness be found in 
thee; thou takest fire at the sight of gain, and art taken 
by the bait of this corrupt food. But if he find no covetous- 
ness in thee, the trap remains spread in vain. Or should 
the tempter set before thee some woman of surpassing 
beauty; if chastity be within, iniquity from without is over- 
come. Therefore that he may not take thee with the bait 
of a strange woman’s beauty, fight with thine own lust 
within; thou hast no sensible perception of thine enemy, 
but of thine own concupiscence thou hast. Thou dost not 
see the devil, but the object that engageth thee thou dost 
see. Get the mastery then over that of which thou art 
sensible within. Fight valiantly, for He who hath regener- 
ated thee is thy Judge; He hath arranged the lists, He is 


118 AURELIUS AUGUSTINE. 


making ready the crown. But because thou wilt without 
doubt be conquered, if thou have not Him to aid thee, if 
He abandon thee: therefore dost thou say in the prayer, 
‘Lead us not into temptation.” ‘The Judge’s wrath hath 
given over some to their own lusts; and the Apostle says, 
‘God gave them over to the lusts of their hearts.” How 
did He give them up? Not by forcing, but by forsaking 
them. 

‘‘ Deliver us from evil;’’ may belong to the same sentence. 
Therefore, that thou mayst understand it to be all one sen- 
tence, it runs thus, “Lead us not into temptation, but 
deliver us from evil.’’ Therefore he added but, to show that 
all this belongs to one sentence, ‘‘ Lead us not into tempta- 
tion, but deliver us from evil.’’ How is this? I will pro- 
pose them singly. ‘‘Lead us not into temptation, but 
deliver us from evil.” By delivering us from evil, He 
leadeth us not into temptation; by not leading us into 
temptation, He delivereth us from evil. 

And truly it is a great temptation, dearly beloved, it is 
a great temptation in this life, when that in us is the subject 
of temptation whereby we attain pardon if, in any of our 
temptations, we have fallen. It is a frightful temptation 
when that is taken from us whereby we may be healed from 
the wounds of other temptations. I know that ye have not 
yet understood me. Give me your attention, that ye may 
understand. Suppose, avarice tempts a man, and he is con- 
quered in any single temptation (for sometimes even a good 
wrestler and fighter may get roughly handled): avarice then 
has got the better of a man, good wrestler though he be, 
and he has done some avaricious act. Or there has been a 
passing lust; it has not brought the man to fornication, nor 
reached unto adultery—for when this does take place, the 
man must at all events be kept back from the criminal act. 
But he “hath seen a woman to lust after her:” he has let 
his thoughts dwell on her with more pleasure than was right ; 


ON THE LORD’S PRAYER. 119 


he has admitted the attack; excellent combatant though he 
be, he has been wounded, but he has not consented to it; 
he has beaten back the motion of his lust, has chastised it 
with the bitterness of grief, he has beaten it back; and has 
prevailed. Still in the very fact that he had slipped, has 
he ground for saying, “‘ Forgive us our debts.”’ And so of 
all other temptations, it is a hard matter that in them all 
there should not be occasion for saying, ‘“ Forgive us our 
debts.” What then is that frightful temptation which I 
have mentioned, that grievous, that tremendous temptation, 
which must be avoided with all our strength, with all our 
resolution ; what is it? When we go about to avenge our- 
selves. Anger is kindled, and the man burns to be avenged. 
O frightful temptation! Thou art losing that, whereby 
thou hadst to attain pardon for other faults. If thou hadst 
committed any sin as to other senses, and other. lusts, hence 
mightst thou have had thy cure, in that thou mightest say, 
‘‘ Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.” But 
whoso instigateth thee to take vengeance, will lose for thee 
the power thou hadst to say, ‘“‘As we also forgive our 
debtors.’”’ When that power is lost, all sins will be retained ; 
nothing at all is remitted. 

Our Lord and Master, and Saviour, knowing this dan- 
gerous temptation in this life, when He taught us six or 
seven petitions in this Prayer, took none of them for him- 
self to treat of, and to commend to us with greater earnest- 
ness, than this one. Have we not said, “Our Father, 
which art in heaven;” and the rest which follows? Why 
after the conclusion of the Prayer, did He not enlarge upon 
it to us, either as to what He had laid down in the begin- 
ning, or concluded with at the end, or placed in the middle? 
For why said He not, if the Name of God be not hallowed 
in you, or if ye have no part in the kingdom of God, or if 
the will of God be not done in you, as in heaven, or if God 
guard you not, that ye enter not into temptation; why 


120 AURELIUS AUGUSTINE. 


none of all these? but what saith He? ‘Verily I say 
unto you, that if ye forgive men their trespasses ;” in refer- 
ence to that petition, ‘‘ Forgive us our debts, as we also 
forgive our debtors.” Having passed over all the other 
petitions which He taught us, this He taught us with an 
especial force. There was no need of insisting so much 
upon those sins in which if a man offend, he may know the 
means whereby he may be cured: need of it there was with 
regard to that sin in which, if thou sin, there is no means 
whereby the rest can be cured. For this thou oughtst to 
be ever saying, “Forgive us our debts.” What debts? 
There is no lack of them; for we are but men; I have 
talked somewhat more than I ought, have said something I 
ought not, have laughed more than I ought, have eaten more 
than I ought, have listened with pleasure to what I ought 
not, have drunk more than I ought, have seen with pleasure 
what I ought not, have thought with pleasure on what I 
ought not; “‘ Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our 
debtors.”” This if thou hast lost, thou art lost thyself. 
Take heed, my brethren, my sons, sons of God, take 
heed, I beseech you, in that I am saying to you. Fight to 
the uttermost of your powers with your own hearts. And 
if ye shall see your anger making a stand against you, pray 
to God against it, that God may make thee conqueror of 
thyself, that God may make thee conqueror, I say, not of 
thine enemy without, but of thine own soul within. For 
He will give thee His present help, and will do it. He 
would rather that we ask this of Him, than rain. For ye 
see, beloved, how many petitions the Lord Christ hath 
taught us; and there is scarce found among them one 
which speaks of daily bread, that all our thoughts may be 
moulded after the life to come? For what can we fear 
that He will not give us, who hath promised and said, 
‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, 


» 


ON THE LORD'S PRAYER. 121 


and all these things shall be added unto you; for your 
Father knoweth that ye have need of these things before ye 
ask Him.” “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His 
righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.”’ 
For many have been tried even with hunger, and have been 
found gold, and have not been forsaken by God. They 
would have perished with hunger, if the daily inward bread 
were to leave their heart. After this let us chiefly hunger. 
For, ‘‘ Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteous- 
ness, for they shall be filled.” But He can in mercy 
look upon our infirmity, and see us, as it is said, ‘“‘ Remember 
that we are dust.” He who from the dust made and 
quickened man, for that His work of clay’s sake, gave His 
Only Son to death. Who can explain, who can worthily 
so much as conceive, how much He loveth us? 


VIII. 
CATHOLICITY OF THE GOSPEL. 


Hopae. 

[Cuarxes Hopes, D. D., the eminent editor of the “ Biblical Reper- 
tory and Princeton Review’ for over forty years, was born in Phila- 
delphia, December 28th 1797. He studied the classics and theology 
in the College of New Jersey and Princeton Theological Seminary. 
Since 1822, he has held leading professorshtfps in the latter institution 
of the Presbyterian Church. Commentaries on Romans, Ephesians, 
and Corinthians, are his chief works, besides “ Systematic Theology,” 
the first volume of which has just appeared. ] 


“Tsihe God of the Jews only, and not of the Gentiles also?”’—Romans 
(11.20, 

Wer are so familiar with the truth contained in these words 
that we do not appreciate its importance. Accustomed to 
the varied beauties of the earth, we behold its manifold 
wonders without emotion; we seldom even raise our eyes 
to look at the beauteous canopy of heaven, which every 
‘night is spread over our heads. The blind, however, when 
suddenly restored to sight, behold with ecstasy what we 
regard with indifference. Thus the truth that God is not a 
national God, not the God of any one tribe or people, but 
the God and Father of all men, and that the Gospel is 
designed and adapted to all mankind, however little it may 
affect us, filled the apostles with astonishment and delight. 
They were slow in arriving at the knowledge of this truth; 
they had no clear perception of it until after the day of 
Pentecost; the effusion of the Spirit which they then re- 
ceived produced a most remarkable change in their views 
and feelings. Before that event, they were Jews; after- 
wards, they were Christians; before, they applied all the 
promises to their own nation; the only Jerusalem of which 


they had any idea was the city where David dwelt; the only 
(122) 


CATHOLICITY OF THE GOSPEL, 123 


temple of which they could form a conception was that in 
which they were accustomed to worship. But when they 
received the anointing of the Holy Ghost, the scales fell 
from their eyes; their nation sank and the Church rose on 
their renovated sight; the Jerusalem that now is, disap- 
peared when they beheld the New Jerusalem descending out 
of heaven; the temple on Mount Zion was no longer glori- 
ous, by reason of the excelling glory of that temple which 
is the habitation of God by his Spirit; old things passed 
away, all things became new; what they had mistaken for 
the building proved to be the scaffolding; the sacrifices, the 
incense, the pompous ritual of the old economy, which they 
had so long regarded as the substance and the end, were 
found to be but shadows. What was the blood of bulls and 
of goats to men who had looked upon the blood of Him who, 
with an eternal Spirit, offered himself unto God? What 
were priests and Levites to the great High Priest, Jesus, the 
Son of God? What was the purifying of the flesh secured 
by the sprinkling the ashes of a heifer, to the eternal re- 
demption secured by Him who is a priest for ever after the 
order of Melchizedec? What was access to the outer court 
of a temple, in which even the symbol of the Divine pre- 
sence was concealed by a veil, to access to God himself by 
the Spirit? What were the tribes of Israel coming up to 
Jerusalem, to the long procession of nations coming to the 
new Jerusalem, and kings to the brightness of her rising; 
the multitudes from Midian and Epha; they too from Sheba, 
bringing their gifts with them; the flocks of Kedar and the 
rams of Nebaioth; the sons of strangers and the forces of 
the Gentiles, hastening to that city whose walls are salvation, 
and whose gates are praise ? 

_ This change in the views of the apostles seems to have 
been almost instantaneous. While Christ was upon earth, 
they were constantly misapprehending his doctrines; even 
in the night in which he was betrayed, there was a conten- 


124 CHARLES HODGE. 


tion among them who should be the greatest in his kingdom. 
But as soon as they received the baptism of the Holy Ghost 
they ceased to speak and act like Jews, and announced a 
religion for the whole world. 

I. In the general proposition, that the Gospel is designed 
and adapted for all mankind, there are several important 
truths involved. The most comprehensive is that contained 
in the text: God is the God of the Gentiles as well as of the 
Jews. It is obvious that the Jews generally, and the apos- 
tles as Jews, entertained very erroneous views on this until 
they were enlightened by the Holy Ghost; they mistook 
even the spirit of the old dispensation. It is true that 
Jehovah chose their nation for a peculiar people, and that 
he'was their God in a sense in which he was not the God of 
the heathen. He revealed himself to them as he did not unto 
the world; he instituted for them a system of religious ob- 
servances ; sent them his prophets to declare his will; exer- 
cised over them a special providence, and constituted them, 
in the strictest sense, a theocracy. There was nothing, how- 
ever, in the Old Testament which justified the proud and 
self-righteous spirit which the Jews manifested towards the 
heathen; they were not authorized to look upon them as 
reprobates shut out from the hope of salvation, as unworthy 
of having even the offer of the true religion made to them. 
The surprise expressed by the apostles that God had granted 
unto the Gentiles repentance unto life, that the gate of hea- 
ven was wide enough to admit more than the descendants of 
Abraham, shows how much they had misconceived the spirit 
of their own religion. 

Their great mistake, however, was in supposing that the 
exclusive spirit, as far as it did in fact belong to the old 
economy, was meant to be perpetual. They mistook a tem- 
porary for a permanent arrangement, and supposed that the 
glory of the theocracy under the Messiah involved nothing 
beyond the exaltation and extended dominion of their own 


CATHOLICINY OF THE GOSPEL, 125 


nation. They were blind to the plainest declarations of their 
own Scriptures, which foretold that God would pour out his 
Spirit upon all flesh; that the Messiah was to be a light to 
the Gentiles, to make known the salvation of God to the 
ends of the earth; and that the sons of the stranger were 
to have in his kingdom a name and a place, better than those 
of sons and daughters. Even the affecting parables of our 
Lord, designed to rebuke the narrow spirit of his disciples, 
failed to make any adequate impression on their minds. 
Though they were told that the prodigal son was to be re- 
stored to his father’s house, clothed with the best robe, and 
rejoiced over with peculiar joy, they understood it not. 

It is not to be supposed that the ancient Jews conceived 
of Jehovah as a local Deity, confined in his essence to any 
one place, or restricted in his authority to any one people. 
From the beginning they had been taught that he was the 
Creator of all things; that he filled heaven and earth; that 
he was almighty, doing his pleasure among the armies of 
heaven and the inhabitants of the earth; but they believed 
him to be indifferent to the welfare of other nations; they 
did not know that he had purposes of mercy for the Gen- 
tiles, as well as for themselves. When they called Jehovah 
their God, they meant not only that he was the God whom 
they acknowledged, but that he belonged exclusively to 
them, that they monopolized his favor, and were the sole 
heirs of his kingdom. What Christ taught them by his 
Word and Spirit was, that God was as favorably inclined to 
the Gentiles as to the Jews; that the same Lord was rich 
toward all who called upon him; that there existed no rea- 
son in the Divine mind, why the heathen should not be fellow- 
heirs and partakers of the grace of the Gospel, why they 
might not be fellow-citizens of the saints and of the house- 
hold of God. This is what is meant, when it is said he is 
the God of the Gentiles as well as of the Jews; he stands 
in the same general relation to both; he is as favorable to 


126 CHARLES HODGE. 


the one as to the other; as ready to receive one as the 
other; as willing to receive and save the one as the other. 
Christ came not as the minister of the circumcision only, 
but that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy, as it 
is written: Rejoice, ye Gentiles, with his people; praise the 
Lord all ye Gentiles, laud him all ye people. This is 
the ground, brethren, on which we stand. We are in the 
Church, not by courtesy of man; not by toleration or suf- 
ferance; not as strangers or proselytes, but as fellow-citi- 
zens and fellow-heirs. We that were not beloved, are now 
beloved; we that were not his people, are now the people 
of God, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and though 
Israel acknowledge us not. It is this glorious truth, that 
God is the God of the Gentiles, that expands the Gospel and 
makes it a religion suited for the whole world. It is no 
longer'the sluggish Jordan flowing through its narrow chan- 
nel: it is asea of glory which spreads from pole to pole. 
The mercy and love of God are commensurate with his 
ubiquity ; whenever he looks down on man and says, My 
children, they may look up to him and say, Our Father! 
Praise him, therefore, O ye Gentiles, laud him, O ye people, 
for Israel’s God is our God and our Redeemer. | 

II. Again, the proposition that the Gospel is designed and 
adapted for all mankind, supposes the spiritual nature of 
Christ’s kingdom, that is, that the service which is now re- 
quired is a spiritual, in opposition to a ritual and ceremo- 
nial service; that the government of that kingdom is a spi- 
ritual government, and that its blessings are spiritual bless- 
ings. The old economy was, from its ritual and ceremonial 
character, incapable of including all nations. Without the 
shedding of blood there was no remission, but sacrifices could 
be offered only at Jerusalem; there was the temple, the 
priest, and the altar; there was the symbol of the Divine 
presence; thither the tribes were required to repair three 
times every year. Innumerable cases were constantly occur- 


CATHOLICITY OF THE GOSPEL. 127 


ring, which rendered attendance at the place where God had 
recorded his name absolutely necessary. As the Jewish 
ritual could not be observed out of Jerusalem, it was impos- 
sible that the whole world should be subjected to that form 
of worship. Those who were afar off were without an offer- 
ing, without a priest, without access to God. The lamenta- 
tions of David, when absent from the court of God, his 
earnest longings after liberty of access to the place where 
God revealed his glory, show how intimately the happiness 
of the people of God was connected with the services of the 
sanctuary. Our Lord announced a radical change in the 
whole economy of religion, and one which disenthralled it 
from all these trammels, when he said to the woman of Sama- 
ria, ‘“‘ Woman, believe me, the hour cometh and now is, when 
ye neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, shall wor- 
ship the Father ; the true worshippers shall worship the Father 
in Spirit and in truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship 
him. God is a Spirit, and they that worship him must wor- 
ship in Spirit and in truth.” It was heye taught, not only 
that the worship of God was no longer to be coufined to any 
one place, but also that it was no longer to be ceremonial 
but spiritual. It is no longer necessary to go up to Jerusa- 
lem, in order to draw near to God, but wherever two or 
three are met together in his name, there is he in the midst 
of them. ‘The temple, in which his people now worship, is 
no longer a temple made with hands, but that spiritual tem- 
ple made without hands. Its pillars rest on the four corners 
of the earth, and it surmounts the heavens; the southern 
African, the northern Greenlander, the innumerable com- 
pany of angels, and the general Assembly and Church of 
the first born, are allincluded in its ample courts. The sac- 
rifice which is now offeredis not the blood of bulls and of 
goats, but the precious blood of Christ, as a lamb slain from 
the foundation of the world. The incense which now 
ascends before the throne of God, comes not from brazen 
censers, but from living hearts. 


128 CHARLES HODGE. 


Again, under the old economy the Church had a visible 
head, who dwelt at Jerusalem, by whom the annual atone- 
ment was made for the sins of the people. He was their 
intercessor before God; the medium of communication be- 
tween God and his people; the arbiter and director of the 
whole congregation. Those, therefore, who were at a dis- 
tance from the High Priest were necessarily cut off from 
many of the most’important advantages of the theocracy. 
Under the Gospel all this is changed. ‘The head of the 
Church, the High Priest of our profession, is no longer a man 
dwelling in any one city, but Jesus, the Son of God, who by 
the one offering up of himself hath for ever perfected them 
that are sanctified ; who is everywhere accessible, everywhere 
present to guide and comfort his people, and who ever lives 
to make intercession for them. The believer cannot be 
where -Christ is not. At any time and in every place he 
may approach his throne, he may embrace his knees or 
wash his feet with tears, and hear him say, Son, or daughter, 
be of good cheer, thy.sins are forgiven thee. 

Once more, as to this point: the blessings which the Gos- 
pel offers being spiritual are adapted to all mankind. The 
benefits connected with the old economy were in a great 
measure external and temporal. ‘This idea the apostle 
expresses by saying its rites could avail only to the purify- 
ing of the flesh. Considered in themselves, they could do 
no more than secure for those who observed them the bene- 
fits of the external theocracy. ‘Those who were circum- 
cised became members of the Hebrew commonwealth ; those 
who kept the law, had the promise of fruitful seasons ; those 
who had forfeited their right of access to the sanctuary, had 
it restored by offering a sacrifice ; those who were defiled by 
any ceremonial uncleanness, might be purified within the 
temple by the officiating priest. Apart, therefore, from its 
reference to the Gospel, the blessings secured by that dis- 
pensation were exclusively of this external character; for it 


CATHOLICITY OF THE GOSPEL. 129 


was impossible that its rites should take away sin. These 
benefits were not only of little value, but they were neces- 
sarily confined to a limited sphere; they were incapable of 
being extended to all mankind. How low must have been 
the expectations of those who considered the Messiah’s 
kingdom as nothing but an enlargement of this system! 
How complete a revolution must it have produced in all 
their views and feelings to discover that Christ’s kingdom 
was not of this world; that the blessings which it promised 
were not worldly prosperity, not a pompous ritual or splen- 
did temple, not dominion over other nations, but the for- 
giveness of sin, the renewal of the heart, reconciliation 
with God and eternal life! These are blessings, not only of 
infinite value, but such as are confined to no one locality. 
They are not more needed by one set of men than another ; 
they are incapable of being monopolized, for they constitute 
an inheritance which is rather increased than lessened by 
the number of the heirs. We say then that the Gospel dis- 
pensation is Catholic, or designed for the whole world, be- 
cause it is a spiritual dispensation; the worship which it 
requires may be as acceptably offered in one place as another ; 
the head of this new covenant is everywhere present and 
everywhere accessible, and the blessings which he confers 
are suited to the necessities of all mankind. 

_ III. Another point of no less importance, is, that the right- 
eousness of Christ, by which these blessings of pardon, 
regeneration, and eternal life are secured, is such as to lay 
an ample foundation for the offer of salvation to all men. 
This is a point with regard to which the minds of the apos- 
tles underwent a great change. Under the old dispensation, 
the High Priest, as the representative of the people, made a 
‘confession of their sins, imposing them on the head of the 
victim, and made reconciliation by sprinkling the blood upon 
the mercy seat. By that atonement the sins of the people, 


considered as committed against the external theocracy, 
i) I 


130 CHARLES HODGE. 


were forgiven, and the blessings of that dispensation were 
actually secured. It is obvious that this was an atonement 
limited in design to that people, having no reference to any 
other nation. It was limited also in its value, having no 
intrinsic worth, but deriving all its efficacy from the sove- 
reign appointment. It was also limited in its very nature; 
being attached to a national covenant, it was in its nature 
available to none who were not included in that covenant; 
it was a Jewish sacrifice, designed for Jews, belonging to a 
covenant made with Jews, and securing blessings in which 
other nations had no concern. ; 

In complete contrast with all this, we know, in the first 
place, that the work of Christ was not limited in design to 
any one nation. Christ himself said, he laid down his life 
for his sheep, and other sheep he had which were not of that 
fold; in this sense it is said he is the propitiation for our 
sins, and not for our sins only, but for the sins of the whole 
world; or, as the same apostle expresses the same truth in 
another place, Jesus died not for that nation only, but that 
he should gather together in one the children of God that 
were scattered abroad. 

In the second place, there is no limit to be placed to the 
value of Christ’s righteousness; its worth is not to be mea- 
sured by the duration or intensity of the Saviour’s suffer- 
ings, but by the dignity of his person. In contrasting the 
sacrifices of the Old Testament with that of the New, the 
apostle says the former were ineflicacious because mere ani- 
mals were offered; that of Christ was effectual, once for all, 
because he offered up himself. It is the nature of the offer- 
ing that determines its value; and as the dignity of Christ’s 
person is infinite, so is the value of his sacrifice; if it suf- 
fices for the salvation of one man, it is sufficient for the sal- 
vation of all; it is incapable of increase or diminution. 
The light of the sun is not measured by the number of those | 
who enjoy its brightness; millions can see by it as well as a 


Vari Olly OF THE GOSPEL. 131 


single individual ; it is not the less because many are affected 
by it, nor would it be the greater though only one enjoyed 
it. So also the righteousness of Christ is in value infinite 
and inexhaustible, because it is the righteousness of God. 

In the third place, the righteousness of Christ is in its 
nature suited to all men. As the annual propitiation under 
the old dispensation belonged to the covenant formed with 
the whole people of Israel, and was in its nature suited to 
all included within that covenant; so the righteousness of 
Christ fulfils the conditions of that covenant under which all 
mankind are placed. He perfectly obeyed the precepts and 
endured the penalty of that law by which all mankind are 
bound; hence his righteousness, being what was due from 
every man, is in its nature suited to each and every man. 
As the work of Christ, as connected with the covenant of 
grace, has special reference to all included in that covenant, 
and effectually secures their salvation ; but as in performing 
the stipulations of that covenant, he fulfilled the conditions 
of the covenant of works which all mankind had broken, 
his work is, in its nature, applicable to all who are under 
the covenant made with Adam. 

Inasmuch, then, as the righteousness of Christ is not 
limited in the design of God to any one nation; as it is of 
‘infinite value; and as it is, in its nature, equally applicable 
.to all men, we are authorized to go to Jew and Gentile, 
to barbarians, Scythians, bond and free, yea, to every crea- 
ture, with the offer of salvation. If any man refuses the 
offer, his blood will be upon his own head; he perishes not 
for want of a righteousness, but because he rejects that 
which is of infinite value and suited to all his necessities. 
The gospel, therefore, is not trammelled; we can go with it 
round the world, and announce to every creature that Christ 
has died, the just for the unjust; that he has wrought out 
an everlasting righteousness, which any man may accept and 


plead before the throne of God. 


toe CHARLES HODGE. 


IV. Again, the catholic character of the gospel is appa- 
rent from its offering salvation on conditions suited to all 
men. It does not require us to ascend into heaven, or to 
go down to the abyss; its demands are simple, intelligible, 
and reasonable; it requires nothing peculiar to any sex, 
age, or class of men; it is not a religion for the rich in dis- 
tinction from the poor, or for the poor in distinction from 
the rich; it is not a system of philosophy intelligible only 
to the learned, nor is it a superstition which none but the 
ignorant can embrace. It is truth, simple and transcend- 
ent; in all that is essential, intelligible to a child, and yet 
the object of admiration and wonder to angels. It does not 
suspend our salvation on any particular ecclesiastical con- 
nection; it does not require us to decide between conflicting 
churches which has the true succession; nor does it make 
grace and salvation to depend on the ministration or will of 
man; it is not the religion of any one sect or church, and 
nothing but the wickedness can equal the folly of the 
attempt to confine the grace of God to the shallow channel 
of a particular ecclesiastical organization. What the gos- 
pel demands ‘‘is nigh thee, in thy heart and in thy mouth ;”’ 
that is, the word of faith which we preach, ‘that if thou shalt 
confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thy 
heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be 
saved. or with the heart man believeth unto righteous- 
ness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” 
Here, then, are terms of salvation which are suited equally 
to all men, the Jew and the Greek, the wise and the unwise, 
the bond and the free. 

V. Again, the rule of life prescribed by the Gospel is 
adapted to all men, in every age and in every part of the 
world; it is the great law of love, which commends itself to 
every man’s conscience, and is suited to all the relations of 
domestic, social, and political life. It is a principle which 
disturbs nothing that ‘s good, which can amalgamate with 
nothing that is wrong, which admits of being acted out 


CALCD OLTOINTY OF THE:GOSP EL. 133 


under all circumstances, and of accommodating itself. to all 
states of society, and to all forms of government. 

How free, how catholic, how pure, how elevated is the 
spirit of the Gospel, which reveals God as an universal 
Father; which makes known a religion confined to no 
locality, burdened with no expensive ritual, conferring on 
those who embrace it, not worldly distinctions, but the spi- 
ritual blessings of pardon and holiness; which reveals a 
righteousness sufficient for all, and suited for all; which 
offers that righteousness to all on the simplest of all condi- 
tions, that of sincerely accepting it; whose moral precepts 
and principles of religious duty, and of ecclesiastical organ- 
ization, admit of being carried out with equal purity and 
power, in all ages and in all parts of the world! 

1. The catholic character of the Gospel, which we have 
now been considering, affords one of the strongest argu- 
ments for its divine origin. No religion can be true which 
is not suited to God as its author, and to man for whom it 
is intended. The Gospel is suited to God because it sup- 
poses him to be, as he in fact is, not a national God, but the 
God and Father of all men; and it is suited to men because 
it meets not the wants of any one class, nor any one class 
of wants, but all the wants of every.class, tribe, or nation. 
But besides this, this catholicity is the very characteristic 
which it would be most difficult to account for on the suppo- 
sition of its human origin. The apostles were Jews, the 
very name for all that is narrow, national, and exclusive ; 
how could the most enlarged and comprehensive system of 
religion owe its origin to such men? We know that the 
apostles retained much of the narrow and exclusive spivit 
of their countrymen, as long as their Master was upon earth. 
When he died they were ready to despair, saying, We trusted 
it had been He who would have redeemed Israel. Even 
after his resurrection their eyes were still but half opened, 
for the last question which they put to him was, ‘“ Lord, wilt 


a+ 


134 CHARLES HODGE. 


thou at this time restore the kingdom unto Israel?” Yet, a 
few days afterward, these same men began to preach that 
the kingdom of Christ was a spiritual kingdom, not designed 
specially for Israel, but for all mankind. This fact admits 
of no other solution than that recorded in the Acts: after 
the apostles had received the promised effusion of the Spirit, 
they spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, making 
it apparent that the Gospel is not the product of Jewish 
minds, but of men divinely instructed and inspired. 

This argument may be viewed in another light. The 
revelations of God, as contained in the Scriptures, admit of 
being divided into three portions: those written before the ~ 
advent of Christ; those referring to his personal ministry 
on earth; and those written after the effusion of the Spirit, 
on the day of Pentecost. In the first portion, all, at first 
view, "is national and exclusive; the prosperity of Jerusa- 
lem and the exaltation of the Jews would seem to be the 
great subject of prophecy and promise; still there is a con- 
stant gleaming through of the imprisoned glory ; constantly 
recurring intimations of a spiritual Jerusalem and of a spi- 
ritual Israel, in whom the glorious things spoken of Zion 
were to meet their accomplishment. 

The personal instructions of our Saviour were conveyed 
mostly in parables, designed to correct the misapprehension 
and to repress the false expectations of his countrymen, but 
rather intimating than fully disclosing the nature of his 
kingdom and the design of his mission. The descent of the 
Holy Spirit shed a flood of light on the whole series of 
divine revelations, back even to. the first promise made to 
our first parents; it is the clear exhibition of the economy 
of redemption, made in the books written after the day of 
Pentecost, that enables us to read the outlines of the gospel 
in the law and the prophets; the relation of these several 
portions of the Scriptures to each other, written at intervals 
during the course of fifteen hundred years, shows that the 
whole is the work of one omniscient Spirit; and the fact 


CATHOLICITY OF THE GOSPEL. 135 


that the catholic spirit of the gospel, as unfolded in the 
later books of the New Testament, is in apparent contra- 
diction, though real agreement with the earlier portions of 
the Word of God, is a decisive proof that the Bible is indeed 
the word of God and not the word of man. 

2. If the gospel, as has been represented, is designed and 
suited for all men, it is suited to us. We need the salvation 
which it reveals; we, being destitute of any righteousness 
of our own, must accept the righteousness which the gospel 
offers, or perish in our sins. That righteousness being all 
that any sinner needs, and being freely and sincerely offered 
to all who hear the Gospel, we are entirely without excuse 
if we refuse or neglect the invitations of mercy. 

3. If the gospel is suited to all men, it should be main- 
tained wherever it is known, and sent wherever it has not 
yet been preached. This is the inference which the apostle 
draws from this subject. If there is no difference between 
' the Jew and Greek; if the same Lord is rich towards all 
who call upon him, then it is the will of God that all should 
call upon him. But how shall they call on him on whom 
they have not believed? And how shall they believe on him 
of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear 
without a preacher? And how shall they preach except 
they be sent? The Gospel being suited to all men, and 
being needed by all, not for their temporal well-being, but 
- for their eternal salvation, woe is us if we do not make it 
known; it is an inheritance in which we are but joint heirs 
with all mankind, and we cannot keep the knowledge of this 
inheritance to ourselves without manifest injustice and 
cruelty. 

Let us, then, endeavor to enter more fully into the catho- 
lic spirit of the gospel; let us remember that the unsearch- 
able riches that are in Christ Jesus are an inheritance for 
all the poor and perishing; and while we thankfully appre- 
hend those riches for ourselves, let us labor that they may 
be made accessible to all mankind. 


IX. 
CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 


CHANNING. 

[Wittram Extery Cuannine, D. D., was the grandson of William 
Ellery, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He was born at 
Newport, Rhode Island, April 7th 1780, and died October 2d 1842. 
At the age of eighteen, he graduated with honor from Harvard Col- 
lege, and in 1803 became pastor of the ‘‘ Religious Society’s Church.” 
High moral worth, consistent advocacy of the temperance and anti- 
slavery reforms, and the gift of lofty eloquence, gave him the leader- 
ship of the Unitarian denomination. This Sermon, taken by permis- 
«sion from his works, is perhaps the one most in harmony with pure 
evangelical truth, though it lacks a recognition of the atonement made 
by our Lord for the redemption of mankind. Dr. Channing advo- 
cated a license of criticism and investigation which, when freed from 
his reverential regard for the authority of the Scriptures, has naturally 
resulted in the extreme “radical” or rationalistic views of a part of 
that body. Of his collected writings, 120,000 volumes have been 


sold.] 4 


“* This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.’’—Matthew xyii. 5. 


THE character of Christ may be studied for various pur- 
poses. It is singularly fitted to call forth the heart, to 
awaken love, admiration, and moral delight. As an exam- 
ple, it has no rival. As an evidence of his religion, perhaps 
it yields to no other proof; perhaps no other has so often 
conquered unbelief. It is chiefly to this last view of it, that 
I now ask your attention. The character of Christ is a 
strong confirmation of the truth of his religion. As such, I 
would now place it before you. I shall not, however, think 
only of confirming your faith; the very illustrations, which 
I shall adduce for this purpose, will show the claims of Jesus 
to our reverence, obedience, imitation, and fervent love. 


The more we contemplate Christ’s character, as exhibited 
(136). » 


CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 137 


in the Gospel, the more we shall be impressed with its gen- 
uineness and reality. It was plainly drawn from the life. 
The narratives of the Evangelists bear the marks of truth, 
perhaps beyond all other histories. They set before us the 
most extraordinary being who ever appeared on earth, and 
yet they are as artless as the stories of childhood. The 
authors do not think of themselves. They have plainly but 
one aim, to show us their Master; and they manifest the 
deep veneration which he inspired, by leaving him to reveal 
himself, by giving us his actions and sayings without com- 
ment, explanation, or eulogy. You see in these narratives 
no varnishing, no high coloring, no attempts to make his 
actions striking, or to bring out the beauties of his charac- 
ter. We are never pointed to any circumstance as illustrative 
of his greatness. The, Evangelists write with a calm trust 
in his character, with a feeling that it needed no aid from 
their hands, and with a deep veneration, as if comment or 
praise of their own were not worthy to mingle with the reci- 
tal of such a life. 

It is the effect of our familiarity with the history of Jesus, 
that we are not struck by it as we ought to be. We read it 
before we are capable of understanding its excellence. His 
stupendous works become as familiar to us as the events of 
ordinary life, and his high offices seem as much matters of 
course as the common relations which men bear to each 
other. On this account, it is fit for the ministers of religion 
to do what the Evangelists did not attempt, to offer com- 
ments on Christ’s character, to bring out its features, to 
point men to its higher beauties, to awaken their awe by un- 
folding its wonderful majesty. Indeed, one of our most im- 
portant functions, as teachers, is to give freshness and vivid- 
ness to truths which have become worn, I had almost said 
tarnished, by long and familiar handling. We have to fight 
with the power of habit. Through habit men look on this 
glorious creation with insensibility, and are less moved by 


138 WILLIAM E. CHANNING. . 


the all-enlightening sun than by a show of fire-works. It is 
the duty of a moral and religious teacher almost to create 
a new sense in men, that they may learn in what a world of 
beauty and magnificence they live. And so in regard to 
Christ’s character; men become used to it, until they ima- 
gine that there is something more admirable in a great man 
of their own day, a statesman or a conqueror, than in Hin, 
the latchet of whose shoes statesmen and conquerors are not 
worthy to unloose. 


In this discourse, I wish to show that the character of 
Christ, taken as a whole, is one which could not have en- 
tered the thoughts of man, could not have been imagined or 
feigned; that it bears every mark of genuineness and truth ; 


that it ought therefore to be acknowledged as real and of 


divine original. 

It is all-important, my friends, if we would feel the force 
of this argument, to transport ourselves to the times when 
Jesus lived. We are very apt to think that he was moving 
about in such a city as this, or among a people agreeing 
with ourselves in modes of thinking and habits of life. But 
the truth is, he lived in a state of society singularly remote 
from our own. Of all nations, the Jewish was the most 
strongly marked. The Jew hardly felt himself to belong 
to the human family. He was accustomed to speak of him- 
self as chosen by God, holy, clean; whilst the Gentiles were 
sinners, dogs, polluted, unclean. His common dress, the 
phylactery on his brow or arm, the hem of his garment, his 
food, the ordinary circumstances of his life, as well as his tem- 
ple, his sacrifices, his ablutions, all held him up to himself 
as a peculiar favorite of God, and all separated him from 
the rest of the world. With other nations he could not eat 
or marry. ‘They were unworthy of his communion. Still, 
with all these notions of superiority, he saw himself con- 
quered by those whom he despised. He was obliged to 
wear the shackles of Rome, to see Roman legions in his ter- 


CHARACTER OF CARIST. 139 


ritory, a Reman guard near his temple, and a Roman 
tax-gatherer extorting, for the support of an idolatrous 
government and an idolatrous worship, what he regarded 
as due only to God. The hatred which burned in the 
breast of the Jew towards his foreign oppressor perhaps 
never glowed with equal intenseness in any other con- 
quered state. He had, however, his secret consolation. 
The time was near, the prophetic age was at hand, when 
Judea was to break her chains and rise from the dust. Her 
long-promised king and deliverer was near, and was coming 
to wear the crown of universal empire. From Jerusalem 
was to go forth his law, and all nations were to serve the 
chosen people of God. ‘To this conqueror the Jews indeed 
ascribed the office of promoting religion ; but the religion of 
Moses, corrupted into an outward service, was to them the 
perfection of human nature. They clung to its forms with 
the whole energy of their souls. ‘To the Mosaic institution 
they ascribed their distinction from all other nations. It 
lay at the foundation of their hopes of dominion. I be- 
lieve no strength of prejudice ever equalled the intense 
attachment of the Jew to his peculiar national religion. 
You may judge of its power by the fact of its having been 
transmitted through so many ages, amidst persecution and 
sufferings which would have subdued any spirit but that of 
.adew. You must bring these things to your mind. You 
must place yourselves in the midst of this singular people. 
Among this singular people, burning with impatient ex- 
pectation, appeared Jesus of Nazareth. His first words 
were, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” 
These words we hear with little emotion; but to the Jews, 
who had been watching for this kingdom for ages, and who 
were looking for its immediate manifestation, they must have 
been awakening as an earthquake. Accordingly we find 
Jesus thronged by multitudes which no building could con- 
tain. He repairs to a mountain, as affording him advantages 


140 WILLIAM E. CHANNING. 


for addressing the crowd. Isee them surrounding him with 
eager looks, and ready to drink in every word from his lips. 
And what do I hear? Not one word of Judea, of Rome, of 
freedom, of conquest, of the glories of God’s chosen people, 
and of the thronging of all nations to the temple on Mount 
Zion. Almost every word was a death-blow to the hopes 
and feelings which glowed through the whole people, and 
were consecrated under the name of religion. He speaks of 
the long-expected Kingdom of Heaven; but speaks of it as 
a felicity promised to, and only to be partaken by, the hum- 
ble and pure in heart. The righteousness of the Pharisees, 
that which was deemed the perfection of religion, and which 
the new deliverer was expected to spread far and wide, he 
“pronounces worthless, and declares the Kingdom of Heaven, 
or of the Messiah, to be shut against all who do not cultivate 
a new; spiritual, and disinterested virtue. Instead of war 
and victory, he commands his impatient hearers to love, to 
forgive, to bless their enemies; and holds forth this spirit of 
benignity, mercy, peace, as the special badge of the people 
of the true Messiah. Instead of national interests and glo- 
ries, he commands them to seek first a spirit of impartial 
charity and love, unconfined by the bounds of tribe or na- 
tion, and proclaims this to be the happiness and honor of 
the reign for which they hoped. Instead of this world’s 
riches, which they expected to. flow from all lands into their 
own, he commands them to lay up treasures in heaven, and 
directs them to an incorruptible, immortal life, as the true 
end of their being. Nor is this all. He does not merely 
offer himself as a spiritual deliverer, as the founder of a new 
empire of inward piety and universal charity ; he closes with 
language announcing a more mysterious office. ‘‘ Many will 
say unto me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophe- 
sied in thy name? and in thy name done many wonderful 
works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew 
you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” Here I meet 


CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 14] 


the annunciation of a character as august as it must have 
been startling. I hear him foretelling a dominion to be ex- 
ercised in the future world. He begins to announce, what 
entered largely into his future teaching, that his power was 
not bounded to this earth. These words I better understand 
when I hear him subsequently declaring that, after a painful 
death, he was to rise again and ascend to heaven, and there, 
in a state of pre-eminent power and glory, was to be the ad- 
vocate and judge of the human race. 

Such are some of the views given by Jesus, of his charac- 

ter and reign, in the Sermon on the Mount. Immediately 
afterwards I hear another lesson from him, bringing out 
some of these truths still more strongly. A Roman centurion 
makes application to him for the cure of a servant, whom he 
particularly valued ; and on expressing, in a strong manner, 
his conviction of the power of Jesus to heal at a distance, 
Jesus, according to the historian, ‘‘marvelled, and said to 
those that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found 
so great faith in Israel; and I say unto you, that many shall 
come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abra- 
ham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; but 
the children of the kingdom” (that is, the Jews) ‘shall be 
east out.” Here all the hopes which the Jews had cherished 
of an exclusive or peculiar possession of the Messiah’s king- 
-dom, were crushed ; and the reception of the despised Gen- 
tile world to all his blessings, or, in other words, the exten- 
sion of his pure religion to the ends of the earth, began to 
be proclaimed.’ 

Here I pause for the present, and I ask you, whether the 
character of Jesus be not the most extraordinary in history, 
and wholly inexplicable on human principles. Review the 
ground over which we have gone. Recollect that he was 

born and grew up a Jew, in the midst of Jews, a people 
burning with one passion, and throwing their whole souls 
into the expectation of a national and earthly deliverer. He 


142 WILLIAM BE. CHANNING. 


grew up among them in poverty, seclusion, and labors fitted 
to contract his thoughts, purposes, and hopes; and yet we 
find him escaping every influence of education and society. 
We find him as untouched by the feelings which prevailed 
universally around him, which religion and patriotism con- 
curred to consecrate, which the mother breathed into the ear 
of the child, and which the teacher of the synagogue 
strengthened in the adult, as if he had been brought up 
in another world. We find him conceiving a sublime pur- 
pose, such as had never dawned on sage or hero, and see him 
possessed with a consciousness of sustaining a relation to 
God and mankind, and of being invested with powers in this 
world and the world to come, such as had never entered the 
human mind. Whence now, I ask, came the conception of 
‘this character ? 

Will any say it had its origin in imposture; that it was a 
fabrication of a deceiver? I answer, the character claimed 
by Christ excludes this supposition, by its very nature. It 
was so remote from all the ideas and anticipations of the 
times, so unfit to awaken sympathy, so unattractive to the 
heathen, so exasperating to the Jew, that it was the last to 
enter the mind of an impostor. <A deceiver of the dullest 
vision must have foreseen, that it would expose him to bitter 
scorn, abhorrence, and persecution, and that he would be 
left to carry on his work alone, just as Jesus always stood 
alone, and could find not an individual to enter into his 
spirit and design. What allurements an unprincipled, self- 
seeking man could find to such an enterprise, no common 
ingenuity can discover. | 

I affirm next, that the sublimity of the character claimed 
by Christ forbids us to trace it to imposture. ‘That a selfish, 
designing, depraved mind could have formed the idea and 
purpose of a work unparalleled in beneficence, in vastness, 
and in moral grandeur, would certainly be a strange depart- 
ure from the laws of the human mind. I add, that if an 


CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 143 


impostor could have lighted on the conception of so sublime 
and wonderful a work as that claimed by Jesus, he could not, 
I say, he could not have thrown into his personation of it the 
air of truth and reality. The part would have been too 
high for him. He would have overacted it or fallen short 
of it perpetually. His true character would have rebelled 
against his assumed one. We should have seen something 
strained, forced, artificial, awkward, showing that he was not 
in his true sphere. To act up to a character so singular and 
grand, and one for which no precedent could be found, seems 
to me utterly impossible for a man who had not the true 
spirit of it, or who was only wearing it as a mask. 

Now, how stands the case with Jesus? Bred a Jewish 
peasant or carpenter, he issues from obscurity, and claims 
for himself a divine office, a superhuman dignity, such as 
had not been imagined; and in no instance does he fall 
below the character. The peasant, and still more the Jew, 
wholly disappears. We feel that a new being, of a new 
order of mind, is taking a part in human affairs. There is 
a native tone of grandeur and authority in his teaching. He 
speaks as a being related to the whole human race. His 
mind never shrinks within the ordinary limits of human 
agency. A narrower sphere than the world never enters his 
thoughts. He speaks ina natural, spontaneous style, of 
accomplishing the most arduous and important change in 
human affairs. This unlabored manner of expressing great 
thoughts is particularly worthy of attention. You never 
hear from Jesus that swelling, pompous, ostentatious lan- 
guage, which almost necessarily springs from an attempt 
to sustain a character above our powers. He talks of his 
glories as one to whom they were familiar, and of his inti- 
macy and oneness with God, as simply as a child speaks of 
his connection with his parents. He speaks of saving and 
judging the world, of drawing all men to himself, and of 
giving everlasting life, as we speak of the ordinary powers 


144 WILLIAM EB. CHANNING. 


which we exert. He makes no set harangues about the 
grandeur of his office and character. His consciousness of 
it gives a hue to his whole language, breaks out in indirect, 
undesigned expressions, showing that it was the deepest and 
most familiar of his convictions. This argument is only to 
be understood by reading the Gospels with a wakeful mind 
and heart. It does not lie on their surface, and it is the 
stronger for lying beneath it. When I read these books 
with care, when I trace the unaffected majesty which runs 
through the life of Jesus, and see him never falling below 
his sublime claims amidst poverty, and scorn, and in his last 
agony, I have a feeling of the reality of his character which 
I cannot express. I feel that the Jewish carpenter could no 
more have conceived and sustained this character under mo- 
tives of imposture, than an infant’s arm could repeat the 
deeds of Hercules, or his unawakened intellect comprehend 
and rival the matchless works of genius. 

Am I told that the claims of Jesus had their origin not in 
imposture, but in enthusiasm ; that the imagination, kindled 
by strong feeling, overpowered the judgment so far as to 
give him the notion of being destined to some strange and 
unparalleled work? I know that enthusiasm, or a kindled 
imagination, has great power; and we are never to lose 
sight of it, in judging of the claims of religious teachers. 
But I say first, that, except in cases where it amounts to 
insanity, enthusiasm works, in a greater or less degree, accord- 
ing to a man’s previous conceptions and modes of thought. 
In Judea, where the minds of men were burning with fever- 
ish expectation of a Messiah, I can easily conceive of a Jew 
imagining that in himself this ardent conception, this ideal 
of glory, was to be realized. I can conceive of his seating’ 
himself in fancy on the throne of David, and secretly ponder- 
ing the means of his appointed triumphs. But that a Jew 
should fancy himself the Messiah, and at the same time 
should strip that character of all the attributes which had 


CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 145 


fired his youthful imagination and heart—that he should 
start aside from all the feelings and hopes of his age, and 
should acquire a consciousness of being destined to a wholly 
new career, and one as unbounded as it was new, this is 
exceedingly improbable; and one thing is certain, that an 
imagination so erratic, so ungoverned, and able to generate 
the conviction of being destined to a work so immeasurably 
disproportioned to the power of the individual, must have 
partaken of insanity. Now, is it conceivable that an indi- 
vidual, mastered by so wild and fervid an imagination, 
should have sustained the dignity claimed by Christ, should 
have acted worthily the highest part ever assumed on earth ? 
Would not his enthusiasm have broken out amidst the pecu- 
liar excitements of the life of Jesus, and have left a touch 
of madness on his teaching and conduct? Is it to such a 
man that we should look for the inculcation of a new and 
perfect form of virtue, and for the exemplification of 
humanity in its fairest form ? 

The charge of an extravagant, self-deluding enthusiasm 
is the last to be fastened on Jesus. Where can we find the 
traces of it in his history? Do we detect them in the calm 
authority of his precepts; in the mild, practical, and bene- 
ficent spirit of his religion; in the unlabored simplicity of 
the language with which he unfolds his high powers, and 
the sublime truths of religion; or in the good sense, the 
knowledge of human nature, which he always discovers in 
his estimate and treatment of the different classes of men 
with whom he acted? Do we discover this enthusiasm in 
the singular fact that, whilst he claimed power in the future 
world, and always turned men’s minds to Heaven, he never 
indulged his own imagination or stimulated that of his dis- 
ciples by giving vivid pictures, or any minute description of 
that unseen state? The truth is, that, remarkable as was 
the character of Jesus, it was distinguished by nothing more 


than by calmness and self-possession. This trait pervades 
K 


146 WILLIAM Ev CHANNING. 


his other excellences. How calm was his piety! Point me, 
if you can, to one vehement, passionate éxpression of his 
religious feelings. Does the Lord’s Prayer breathe a fever- 
ish enthusiasm? The habitual style of Jesus on the subject 
of religion, if introduced into many churches of his follow- 
ers at the present day, would be charged with coldness. 
The calm and the rational character of his piety is particu- 
larly seen in the doctrine which, he so earnestly inculcates, 
that disinterested love and self-denying service to our fellow- 
creatures are the most acceptable worship we can offer to 
our Creator. His benevolence, too, though singularly ear- 
nest and deep, was composed and serene. He never lost the 
possession of himself in his sympathy with others; was 
never hurried into the impatient and rash enterprises of an 
enthusiastic philanthropy ; but did good with the tranquillity 
and constancy which mark the providence of God. The 
depth of his calmness may best be understood by considering 
the opposition made to his claims. His labors were every- 
where insidiously watched and industriously thwarted by 
vindictive foes, who had even conspired to compass, through 
his death, the ruin of his cause. Now, a feverish enthusiasm 
which fancies itself to be intrusted with a great work of God, 
is singularly liable to impatient indignation under furious and 
malignant opposition. Obstacles increase its vehemence ; it 
becomes more eager and hurried in the accomplishment of its 
purposes, in proportion as they are withstood. Be it there- 
fore remembered that the malignity of Christ’s foes, though 
never surpassed, and for the time triumphant, never robbed 
him of self-possession, roused no passion, and threw no vehe- 
mence or precipitation into his exertions. He did not dis- 
guise from himself or his followers the impression made on 
the multitude by his adversaries. He distinctly foresaw the 
violent death towards which he was fast approaching. Yet, 
confiding in God and in the silent progress of his truth, he 
possessed his soul in peace. Not only was he calm, but his 


CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 147 


calmness rises into sublimity when we consider the storms 
which raged around him, and the vastness of the prospects 
in which his spirit found repose. I say then that serenity 
and self-possession were peculiarly the attributes of Jesus. 
I affirm that the singular and sublime character claimed by 
Jesus can be traced neither to imposture nor to an ungov- 
erned, insane imagination. It can only be accounted for by 
its truth, its reality. 

I began with observing how our long familiarity with 
Jesus blunts our minds to his singular excellence. We 
probably have often read of the character which he claimed, 
without a thought of its extraordinary nature. But I know 
nothing so sublime. The plans and labors of statesmen sink 
into the sports of children when compared with the work 
which Jesus announced, and.to which he devoted himself in 
life and death with a thorough consciousness of its reality. 
The idea of changing the moral aspect of the whole earth, 
of recovering all nations to the pure and inward worship of 
one God, and to a spirit of divine and fraternal love, was 
one of which we meet not a trace in philosopher or legislator 
before him. The human mind had given no promise of this 
extent of view. The conception of this enterprise, and the 
calm, unshaken expectation of success in one who had no 
station and no wealth, who cast from him the sword with 
abhorrence, and who forbade his disciples to use any weapons 
but those of Jove, discover a wonderful trust in the power 
of God and the power of love; and when to this we add that 
Jesus looked not only to the triumph of his pure faith in 
the present world, but to a mighty and beneficent power in 
Heaven, we witness a vastness of purpose, a grandeur of 
thought and feeling so original, so superior to the workings 
of all other minds, that nothing but our familiarity can 
prevent our contemplation of it with wonder and profound 
awe. I confess, when I can escape the deadening power of 
habit, and can receive the full import of such passages as the 


148 WILLIAM E. CHANNING. 


following :—‘‘ Come unto me, all ye that labor and are 
heavy laden, and I will give you rest,”—‘‘I am come to 
seek and to save that which was lost,’—‘*‘ He that confess- 
eth me before men, him will I confess before my Father in 
Heaven,’—‘‘ Whosoever shall be ashamed of me before 
men, of him shall the Son of Man be ashamed when he 
cometh in the glory of the Father with the holy angels,’’— 
“In my Father’s house are many mansions; I go to pre- 
pare a place for you :’’—I say, when I can succeed in realiz- 
ing the import of such passages, I feel myself listening to a 
being, such as never before and never since spoke in human 
language. I am awed by the consciousness of greatness 
which these simple words express; and when I connect this 
greatness with the proofs of Christ’s miracles which I gave 
you in a former discourse, I am compelled to exclaim with 
the centurion, “Truly, this was the Son of God.” 

I have thus, my friends, set before you one view of Jesus 
Christ, which shows him to have been the most extraordi- 
nary being who ever lived. I invite your attention to 
another, and I am not sure but that it is still more striking. 
You have seen the consciousness of greatness which Jesus 
possessed; I now ask you to consider how, with this con- 
sciousness, he lived among men. ‘To convey my meaning 
more distinctly, let me avail myself of an imaginary case. 
Suppose you had never heard the particulars of Christ’s 
history, but were told in general that, ages ago, an extraor- 
dinary man appeared in the world, whose mind was wholly 
possessed with the idea of having come from God, who 
regarded himself as clothed with divine power and charged 
with the sublimest work in the universe, who had the con- | 
sciousness of sustaining a relation of unexampled authority 
and beneficence, not to one nation or age, but to all nations 
and all times, and who anticipated a spiritual kingdom and 
everlasting power beyond the grave. Suppose you should 
be told that, on entering the world, he found not one mind 


CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 149 


able to comprehend his views, and felt himself immeasurably 
exalted in thought and purpose above all around him, and 
suppose you should then be asked what appearance, what 
mode of life, what tone, what air, what deportment, what 
intercourse with the multitude seemed to you to suit such a 
character, and were probably adopted by him; how would 
you represent him to your minds? Would you not suppose 
that, with this peculiar character, he adopted some peculiar 
mode of life, expressive of his superiority to, and separation 
from all other men? Would you not expect something 
distinctive in his appearance ? Would you not expect him 
to assume some badge, and to exact some homage? Would 
you not expect that, with a mind revolving such vast 
thoughts, and raised above the earth, he would look coldly 
on the ordinary gratifications of men? that, with a mind 
spreading itself over the world, and meditating its subjection 
to his truth, he would ‘take little interest in ordinary indi- 
viduals? and that possessing, in his own doctrine and cha- 
racter, a standard of sublime virtue, he would attach little 
importance to the low attainments of the ignorant and 
superstitious around him? Would you not make him a 
public character, and expect to see him laboring to establish 
his ascendency among public men? Would you not expect 
to see his natural affections absorbed in his universal philan- 
thropy; and would not private attachments seem to you 
quite inconsistent with his vast superiority and the immen- 
sity of his purposes? Would you not expect him to avail 
himself of the best accommodations the world could afford ? 
Would you not expect the great Teacher to select the most 
sacred spots for his teaching, and the Lord of all to erect 
some conspicuous seat from which should go forth the laws 
which were to reach the ends of the earth? Would you not, 
in a word, expect this extraordinary personage to surround 
himself with extraordinary circumstances, and to maintain 
a separation from the degraded multitude around him ? 


150 WILLIAM EE. CHANNING. 


Such, I believe, would be the expectation of us all; and 
what was the case with Jesus? Read his history. He 
comes with the consciousness of more than human greatness, 
to accomplish an infinite work, and where do you find him? 
What is his look? what his manner? How does he con- 
verse, how live with men? His appearance, mode of life, 
and intercourse are directly the reverse of what we should 
have supposed. He comes in the ordinary dress of the class 
of society in which he had grown up. He retreats to no 
solitude, like John, to strike awe, nor seeks any spot which 
had been consecrated in Jewish history. Would you find 
him? Go to the house of Peter, the fisherman. Go to the 
well of Samaria, where he rests after the fatigues of his 
journey. Would you hear him teach? You may find him, 
indeed, sometimes in the temple, for that was a place of 
general resort ; but commonly you may find him instructing 
in the open air, now from a boat on the Galilean lake, now 
on a mount, and now in the streets of the crowded city. He 
has no place wherein to lay his head, nor will he have one. 
A rich ruler comes and falls at his feet. He says, ‘ Go, 
sell what thou hast and give to the poor, and then come and 
follow me.” Nor was this all. Something more striking 
remains to be told.. He did not merely live in the streets 
and in the houses of fishermen. In these places, had he 
pleased, he might have cleared a space around him, and 
raised a barrier between himself and others. But in these 
places and everywhere, he lived with men as a man, a 
brother, a friend, sometimes a servant; and entered, with a 
deep, unexampled sympathy, into the feelings, interests, 
wants, sorrows of individuals, of ordinary men, and even 
of the most depressed, despised, and forsaken of the race. 
Here is the most striking view of Jesus. This combination 
of the spirit of humanity, in its lowliest, tenderest form, 
with the consciousness of unrivalled and divine glories, is 
the most wonderful distinction of this wonderful character. 


CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 151 


Here we learn the chief reason why he chose poverty, and 
refused every peculiarity of manner and appearance. He 
did this because he desired to come near to the multitude 
of men, to make himself accessible to all, to pour out the 
fullness of his sympathy upon all, to know and weep over 
their sorrows and sins, and to manifest his interest in their 
affections and joys. 

I can offer but a few instances of this sympathy of Christ 
with human nature in all its varieties of character and con- 
dition. But how beautiful are they! At the very opening 
of his ministry we find him present at a marriage, to which 
he and his disciples had been called. Among the Jews this 
was an occasion of peculiar exhilaration and festivity ; but 
Jesus did not therefore decline it. He knew what affections, 
joys, sorrows, and moral influences are bound up in this 
institution, and he went to the celebration, not as an ascetic, 
to frown on its bright hopes and warm congratulations, but 
to sanction it by his presence, and to heighten its enjoy- 
ments. How little does this comport with the solitary 
dignity which we should have pronounced most accordant 
with his character, and what a spirit of humanity does it 
breathe! But this event:stands almost alone in his history. 
His chief sympathy was not with them that rejoice, but with 
the ignorant, sinful, sorrowful; and with these we find him 
cultivating an habitual intimacy. _Though so exalted in 
thought and purpose, he chose uneducated men to be his 
chief disciples ; and he lived with them, not as a superior, 
giving occasional and formal instruction, but became their 
companion, travelled with them on foot, slept in their 
_ dwellings, sat at their tables, partook their plain fare, com- 
municated to them his truth in the simplest form; and 
though they constantly misunderstood him, and never re- 
ceived his full meaning, he was never wearied with teaching 
them. So familiar was his intercourse, that we find Peter 


reproving him with an affectionate zeal for announcing his 
¥€ 


152 WILLIAM E. CHANNING. 


approaching death, and we find John leaning on his bosom. 
Of his last discourse to these disciples I need not speak. It 
stands alone among all writings for the union of tenderness 
and majesty. His own sorrows are forgotten in his solicitude 
to speak peace and comfort to his humble followers. 

The depth of his human sympathies was beautifully mani- 
fested when children were brought to him. His disciples, 
judging as all men would judge, thought that he who was 
sent to wear the crown of universal empire, had too great a 
work before him to give his time and attention to children, 
and reproved the parents who brought them; but Jesus, 
rebuking his disciples, called to him the children. Never, I 
believe, did childhood awaken such deep love as at that 
moment. He took them in his arms and blessed them, and 
not only said that ‘‘of such was the kingdom of heaven,”’ 
but added, ‘“ He that receiveth a little child in my name, 
receiveth me;’’ so entirely did he identify himself with this 
primitive, innocent, beautiful form of human nature. 

There was no class of human beings so low as to be 
beneath his sympathy. He not merely taught the publican 
and sinner, but, with all his consciousness of purity, sat 
down and dined with them, and, when reproved by the 
malignant Pharisee for such companionship, answered by 
the touching parables of the Lost Sheep and the Prodigal 
Son, and said, *“*I am come to seek and to save that which 
was lost.” 

No personal suffering dried up this fountain of love in his 
breast. On his way to the cross he heard some women of 
Jerusalem bewailing him, and at the sound, forgetting his 
own grief, he turned to them and said, ‘‘ Women of Jerusa- 
lem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and your 
children.’’ On the cross, whilst his mind was divided be- 
tween intense suffering and the contemplation of the infinite 
blessings in which his sufferings were to issue, his eye lighted 
on his ee ee John, and the sensibilities of a son and 


CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 153 


a friend mingled with the sublime consciousness of the 
universal Lord and Saviour. Never before did natural 
affection find so tender and beautiful an utterance. ‘To his 
mother he said, directing her to John, “‘ Behold thy son; I 
leave my beloved disciple to take my place, to perform my 
filial offices, and to enjoy a share of that affection with 
which you have followed me through life; and to John he 
said, ‘‘ Behold thy mother ; I bequeath to you the happiness 
of ministering to my dearest earthly friend.” Nor is this 
all. The spirit of humanity had one higher triumph. 
Whilst his enemies surrounded him with a malignity unsoft- 
ened by his last agonies, and, to give the keenest edge to 
insult, reminded him scoffingly of the high character and 
office which he had claimed, his only notice of them was the 
prayer, ‘“‘ Father, forgive them, they know not what they 
do.” 

Thus Jesus lived with men; with the consciousness of 
unutterable majesty he joined a lowliness, gentleness, hu- 
manity, and sympathy, which have no example in human 
history. I ask you to contemplate this wonderful union. 
In proportion to the superiority of Jesus to all around hin, 
was the intimacy, the brotherly love, with which he bound 
himself to them. I maintain that this is a character wholly 
remote from human conception. To imagine it to be the 
production of imposture or enthusiasm, shows a strange 
unsoundness of mind. I contemplate it with a veneration 
second only to the profound awe with which I look up to 
God. It bears no mark of human invention. It was real. 
It belonged to and it manifested the beloved Son of God. 


But I have not done. May I ask your attention a few 
moments more? We have not yet reached the depth of 
Christ's character. We have not touched the great princi- 
ple on which his wonderful sympathy was founded, and 
which endeared to him his office of universal Saviour. Do 


154 WILLIAM E. CHANNING. : 


you ask what this deep principle was? I answer, it was his 
conviction of the greatness of the human soul. He saw in 
man the impress and image of the divinity, and therefore 
thirsted for his redemption, and took the tenderest interest 
in him, whatever might be the rank, character, or condition 
in which he was found. This spiritual view of man pervades 
and distinguishes the teaching of Christ. Jesus looked on 
men with an eye which pierced beneath the material frame. 
The body vanished before him. The trappings of the rich, 
the rags of the poor, were nothing to him. He looked 
through them, as though they did not exist, to the soul; 
and there, amidst clouds of ignorance and plague-spots of 
sin, he recognised a spiritual and immortal nature, and the 
germs of power and perfection which might be unfolded for 
ever. In the most fallen and depraved man, he saw a being 
who might become an angel of light. Still more, he felt 
that there was nothing in himself to which men might not 
ascend. His own lofty consciousness did not sever him from 
the multitude; for he saw in his own greatness the model 
of what men might become. So deeply was he thus im- 
pressed that, again and again, in speaking of his future 
glories, he announced that in these his true followers were 
to share. They were to sit on his throne and partake of 
his beneficent power. 

Here I pause, and indeed I know not what can be added 
to heighten the wonder, reverence, and love, which are due 
to Jesus. When I consider him, not only as possessed with 
the consciousness of an unexampled and unbounded majesty, 
but as recognising a kindred nature in human beings, and 
living and dying to raise them to a participation of his 
divine glories; and when I see him under these views 
allying himself to men by the tenderest ties, embracing 
them with a spirit of humanity which no insult, injury, or 
pain could for a moment repel or overpower, I am filled 
with wonder as well as reverence and love. I feel that this 


CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 155 


character is not of human invention, that it was not assumed 
through fraud, or struck out by enthusiasm; for it is infi- 
nitely above their reach. When I add this character of 
_ Jesus to the other evidences of his religion, it gives to what 
before seemed so strong, a new and a vast accession of 
strength ; I feel as if I could not be deceived. The Gospels 
must be true; they were drawn from a living original ; they 
were founded on reality. The character of Jesus is not a 
fiction; he was what he claimed to be, and what his follow- 
ers attested. Nor is this all. Jesus not only was, he is 
still the Son of God, the Saviour of the world. He exists 
now ; he has entered that Heaven to which he always looked 
forward on earth. There he lives and reigns. With a clear, 
calm faith I see him in that state of glory; and I confidently 
expect, at no distant period, to see him face to face. We 
have indeed no absent friend whom we shall so surely meet. 
Let us then, my hearers, by imitation of his virtues and 
obedience to his word, prepare ourselves to join him in those 
pure mansions, where he is surrounding himself with the 
good and pure of our race, and will communicate to them 
for ever his own spirit, power, and joy. 


X. 
THE FIRST PROPHECY. 


MELVILLE. 


[Henry Metvitiz, B.D., for many years “the most popular 
preacher in London,” was born in Cornwall, September 14th 1798. 
He was educated at St. Peter’s College, Cambridge, and ministered 
in Camden Chapel, London, from 1829 to 1843. Queen Victoria 
appointed him her chaplain-in-ordinary ten years later, and subse- 
quently canon-residentiary of St. Paul’s. His constitution was frail, 
but his abilities were of a high order. His Sermons attest deep 
thought and skilful elaboration. He had the rare power of develop- 
ing to its full the spiritual meaning of his text, and of stamping its 
teachings lastingly upon the hearts and minds of his hearers. | 


“And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy 
seed and her seed: it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his 
heel.”’—Genesis iii. 15. 

Sucu is the first prophecy which occurs in Scripture. 
Adam and Eve had transgressed the simple command of 
their Maker; they had hearkened to the suggestions of the 
tempter, and eaten of the forbidden fruit. Summoned into 
the presence of God, each of the three parties is succes- 
sively addressed; but the serpent, as having originated evil, 
receives first his sentence. } 

We have, of course, no power of ascertaining the external 
change which the curse brought upon the serpent. The 
terms, however, of the sentence, ‘‘ Upon thy belly shalt thou 
go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life,” (Gen. 
iii. 14), seem to imply that the serpent had not been created 
a reptile, but became classed with creeping things, as a con- 
sequence of the curse. It is probable that heretofore the 
serpent had been remarkable for beauty and splendor, and . 
that on this account the tempter chose it as the vehicle of 


his approaches. ve, in all likelihood, was attracted towards 
(156) 


THE FIRST PROPHECY, 157 


the creature by its loveliness: and when she found it en- 
dowed, like herself, with the power of speech, she possibly 
concluded that it had itself eaten of the fruit, and acquired 
thereby a gift which she thought confined to herself and her 
husband. 

But we may be sure that, although, to mark his hatred 
of sin, God pronounced a curse on the serpent, it was against 
the devil, who had actuated the serpent, that the curse was 
chiefly directed. It may be said that the serpent itself must 
have been innocent in the matter, and that the curse should 
have fallen on none but the tempter. But you are'to remem- 
ber that the serpent suffered not alone: every living thing 
had share in the consequences of disobedience. And although 
the effect of man’s apostasy on the serpent may have been 
more signal and marked than on other creatures, we have 
no right to conclude that there was entailed so much greater 
suffering on this reptile as to distinguish it in misery from 
the rest of the animal creation. | 

But undoubtedly it was the devil, more emphatically than 
the serpent, that God cursed for the seduction of man. The 
words, indeed, of our text have a primary application to the 
serpent. It is most strictly true, that, ever since the fall, 
there has been enmity between man and the serpent. Every 
man will instinctively recoil at the sight of a serpent. We 
have a natural and unconquerable aversion from this tribe 
of living things, which we feel not in respect to others, even 
fiercer and more noxious. Men, if they find a serpent, will 
always strive to destroy it, bruising the head in which the 
poison lies; whilst the serpent will often avenge itself, 
wounding its assailant, if not mortally, yet so as to make 
it true that it bruises his heel. 

But whilst the words have thus, undoubtedly, a fulfilment 
in respect of the serpent, we cannot question that their 
reference is chiefly to the devil. It was the devil, and not 
the serpent, which had beguiled the woman; and it is only 


158 HENRY MELVILLE. 


in a very limited sense that it could be said to the serpent, 
*‘ Because thou hast done this.” We are indeed so un- 
acquainted with transactions in the world of spirits, that we 
cannot pretend to determine what, or whether any, imme- 
diate change passed on the condition of Satan and his asso- 
ciates. If the curse upon the serpent took effect upon the 
devil, it would seem probable, that, ever since the fall, the 
power of Satan has been specially limited to this earth and 
its inhabitants. We may gather from the denunciation, 
“Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all 
the days of thy life,’ that, in place of being allowed, as he 
might beforetime have been, to range through the universe, 
machinating against the peace of many orders of intelligence, 
he was confined to the arena of humanity, and forced to con- 
centrate his energies on the destruction of a solitary race. 
It would seem altogether possible, that, after his ejectment 
from heaven, Satan had liberty to traverse the vast area of 
creation ; and that far-off stars and planets were accessible 
to his wanderings. It is to the full as possible, that, as soon 
as man apostatized, God confirmed in their allegiance other 
orders of beings, and shielded them from the assaults of the 
evil one, by chaining him to the earth on which he had just 
won a victory. And if, as the result of his having seduced 
our first parents, Satan were thus sentenced to confinement 
to this globe, we may readily understand how words, ad- 
dressed to the serpent, dooming it to trail itself along the 
ground, had distinct reference to the tempter by whom that 
serpent had been actuated. 

But, whatever be our opinion concerning this part of the 
curse, there can be no doubt that our text must be explained 
of the devil, though, as we have shown you, it has a partial 
fulfilment in respect of the serpent. We must here consider 
God as speaking to the tempter, and announcing war between 
Satan and man. We have called the words a prophecy ; 
and, when considered as addressed to the devil, such is 


THE FIRST PROPHECY. 159 


properly their designation. But when we remember that 
they were spoken in the hearing of Adam and Eve, we must 
regard them also in the light of a promise. And it is well 
worth remark, that, before God told the woman of her sor- 
row and her trouble, and before he told the man of the 
thorn, and the thistle, and the dust to which he should 
return, he caused them to hear words which must have in- 
spired them with hope. Vanquished they were; and they 
might have thought that, with an undisputed supremacy, he’ 
who had prevailed to their overthrow would ever after hold 
them in vassalage. Must it not then have been cheering to 
them, whilst they stood as criminals before their God, expect- 
ing the sentence which disobedience had provoked, to hear 
that their conqueror should not enjoy unassaulted his con- 
quest, but that there were yet undeveloped arrangements 
which would insure to humanity final mastery over the 
oppressor? And though, when God turned and spake to 
themselves, he gave no word of encouragement, but dwelt 
only on the toil and the death which they had wrought into 
their portion, still the prophecy to which they had listened 
must have sunk into their hearts as a promise; and when, 
with lingering steps, and the first tears ever wept, they 
departed from the glorious precincts of Eden, we may be- 
lieve that one sustained the other by whispering the words, 
Though “ thou shalt bruise his heel, it shall bruise thy head.”’ 

There can be no doubt that intimations of redemption 
were given to our guilty parents, and that they were in- 
structed by God to offer sacrifices which should shadow out 
the method of atonement. And though it does not of course 
follow that we are in possession of all the notices mercifully 
afforded, it seems fair to conclude, as well from the time of 
delivery as from the nature of the announcement, that our 
text was designed to convey comfort to the desponding ; and 
that it was received as a message breathing deliverance by 
those who expected an utter condemnation. 


160 HENRY MELVILLE. 


We are not, however, much concerned with the degree in 
which the prophecy was at first understood. It cannot justly 
be called, an obscure prophecy: for it is quite clear on the 
fact, that, by some means or another, man should gain ‘ad- 
vantage over Satan. And though, if considered as referring 
to Christ, there be a mystery about it, which could only be 
cleared up by after events, yet, as a general prediction of 
victory, it must have commended itself, we think, to the 
understanding and the heart of those of our race by whom 
it was first heard. 

But whether or no the prophecy were intelligible to Adam 
and Eve, unto ourselves it is a wonderful passage, spreading 
itself over the whole of time, and giving outlines of the his- 
tory of this world from the beginning to the final consumma- 
tion. We caution you at once against an idea which many 
have entertained, that the prediction before us refers only, 
or even chiefly, to the Redeemer. We shall indeed find, as 
we proceed, that Christ, who was specially the seed of the 
woman, specially bruised the head of the serpent. But the 
prophecy is to be interpreted in a much larger sense. It is 
nothing less than a delineation of an unwearied conflict, of 
which this earth shall be the theatre, and which shall issue, 
though not without partial disaster to man, in the complete 
discomfiture of Satan and his associates. And no man who 
is familiar with other predictions of Scripture, can fail to 
find; in this brief and solitary verse, the announcement of 
those very struggles and conquests which occupy the gor- 
geous poetry of Isaiah, and crowd the mystic canvas of 
Daniel and St. John. 

We wish you, therefore, to dismiss, if you have ever 
entertained, contracted views of the meaning of our text. 
It must strike you at the first glance, that though Christ 
was in a peculiar sense the seed of the woman, the phrase 
applies to others as well as the Redeemer. We are therefore 
bound, by all fair laws of interpretation, to consider that the 


THESFIRST PROPHEC Y., 161 


prophecy must be fulfilled in more than one individual; 
especially as it declares that the woman, as well as her seed, 
should entertain the enmity, and thus marks out more than 
a single party as engaging in the conflict. 

Now there are one or two preliminary observations which 
require all your attention, if you hope to enter into the full 
meaning of the prediction. 

We wish you, first of all, to remark particularly the 
expression, ‘I will put enmity.”’ The enmity, you observe, 
had no natural existence: God declares his intention of 
putting enmity. As soon as man transgressed, his nature 
became evil, and therefore he was at peace, and not at war, 
with the devil. And thus, had there been no interference 
on the part of the Almighty, Satan and man would have 
formed alliance against heaven, and, in place of a contest 
between themselves, have carried on nothing but battle with 
God. There is not, and cannot be, a native enmity between 
fallen angels and fallen men. Both are evil, and both 
became evil through apostasy. But evil, wheresoever it 
exists, will always league against good; so that fallen angels 
and fallen men were sure to join in a desperate companion- 
ship. Hence the declaration, that enmity should be put, 
must have been to Satan the first notice of redemption. 
This lofty spirit must have calculated, that, if he could in- 
“duce men, as he had induced angels, to join in rebellion, 
he should have them for allies in his every enterprise against 
heaven. There was nothing of enmity between himself and 
the spirits who had joined in the effort to dethrone the 
Omnipotent. At least whatever the feuds and jarrings which 
might disturb the rebels, they were linked, as with an iron 
band, in the one great object of opposing good. So that | 
when he heard that there should be enmity between himself 
and the woman, he must have felt that some apparatus would 
be brought to bear upon man; and that, though he had suc- 
ceeded in depraving human nature, and thus assimilating it 

L 


162 HENRY MELVILLE, 


to his own, it should be renewed by some mysterious process, 
and wrought up to the lost power of resisting its conqueror. 
And accordingly it has come to pass, that there is enmity 
on the earth between man and Satan; but an enmity super- 
naturally put, and not naturally entertained. Unless God 
pour his converting grace into the soul, there will be no 
attempt to oppose Satan, but we shall continue to. the end 
of our days his willing captives and servants. And. there- 
fore it is God who puts the enmity. Introducing a new 
principle into the heart, he causes conflict where there had 
heretofore been peace, inclining and enabling man to rise 
against his tyrant. So. that, in these first words of the 
prophecy, you have the clearest intimation that God designed 
to visit the depraved nature with a renovating energy. And 
now, whensoever you see an individual delivered from the 
love, and endowed with a hatred, of sin, resisting those pas- 
sions which held naturally sway within his breast, and thus 
grappling with the fallen spirit which claims dominion upon 
earth, you are surveying the workings of a principle which 
is wholly from above; and you are.to consider that you 
have before you the fulfilment of the declaration, “1 will 
put enmity between thee and the woman.”’ | 
We go on to observe that the enmity, being thus a super- 
human thing, implanted by God and not generated by man, — 
will not subsist universally, but only in particular cases. - 
You will have seen, from our foregoing showings, that a 
man must be renewed in order to his fighting with Satan ; 
so that God’s putting the enmity is God’s giving saving 
grace. The prophecy cannot be interpreted as declaring 
that the whole human race should be at war with the devil: 
the undoubted matter-of-fact being that only a portion of 
the race resumes its loyalty to Jehovah. And we are bound, 
therefore, before proceeding further with our interpretation, 
to examine whether this limitation is marked out by the pre- 
diction—whether, that is, we might infer, from the terms of 


THE FIRST PROPHECY. 163 


‘the prophecy, that the placed enmity would be partial, not 
universal. 

Now we think that the expression, ‘Thy seed and her 
seed,’ shows at once that the enmity would be felt by only 
a part of mankind. The enmity is to subsist, not merely 
between Satan and the woman, but between his seed and 
her seed. But the seed of Satan can only be interpreted 
of wicked men. ‘Thus Christ said to the Jews, ‘‘ Ye are 
of your father the devil; and the lusts of your father ye 
will do.” (John viii. 44.) Thus also, in expounding the 
parable of the tares and the wheat, he said, ‘‘ The tares are 
the children of the wicked one.” (Matt. xiii. 38.) There 
is probably, the same reference in the expression, ‘‘O gene- 
ration of vipers.” And, in like manner, you find St. John 
declaring, ‘‘ He that committeth sin is of the devil.” (1 John 
iii. 8.) Thus, then, by the seed of Satan we understand 
wicked men, those who resist God’s Spirit, and obstinately 
adhere to the service of the devil. And if we must inter- 
pret the seed of Satan of a portion of mankind, it is evident 
that the prophecy marks not out the enmity as general, but 
indicates just that limitation which has been supposed in our 
preceding remarks. 

But then the question occurs, How are we to interpret the 
woman and her seed? Such expression seems to denote the 
- whole human race. What right have we to limit it to a part 
of that race? We reply, that it certainly does not denote 
the whole human race: for if you interpret it literally of 
Eve and her descendants, Adam, at least, is left out, who 
was neither the woman nor her seed. But without insisting 
on the objection under this form, fatal as it is to the pro- 
posed interpretation, we should not be warranted, though we 
have no distinct account of the faith and repentance of 
Adam, in so explaining a passage as to exclude our common 
forefather from final salvation. You must see, that, if we 
take literally the woman and her seed, no enmity was put 


164 HENRY MELVILLE. 


between Adam and Satan; for Adam was neither the woman 
nor the seed of the woman. And if Adam continued in 
friendship with Satan, it must be certain that he perished in 
his sins: a conclusion to which we dare not advance without 
scriptural testimony the most clear and explicit. 

We cannot, then, understand the woman and her seed as 
Eve and her natural descendants. We must rather believe, 
that as the seed of the serpent is to be interpreted spiritu- 
ally and symbolically, so also is the seed of the woman. 
And when you remember that Eve was a signal type of the 
church, there is an end ‘of the difficulties by which we seem 
met. You know, from the statement of St. Paul to the 
Romans, that Adam was the figure of Christ. (Rom. y. 14.) 
Now it was his standing to Eve in the very same relationship 
in which Christ stands to the church, which specially made 
Adam the figure of Christ. The side of Adam had been 
opened, when a. deep sleep fell on him, in order that Eve 
might be formed, an extract from himself. And thus, as 
Hooker saith, ‘‘God frameth the church out of the very 
flesh, the very wounded and bleeding side of the Son of 
Man. His body crucified, and his blood shed for the life of 
the world, are the true elements of that heavenly being which 
maketh us such as himself is, of whom we come. For which 
cause the words of Adam may be fitly the words of Christ 
concerning his church, ‘ Flesh of my flesh, and bone of my 
bones.’”” We cannot go at length into the particulars of the 
typical resemblance between Eve and the church. It is 
sufficient to observe, that since Adam, the husband of Eve, 
was the figure of Christ, and since Christ is the husband 
of the church, it seems naturally to follow that Eve was the 
figure or type of the church. And when we have established 
this typical character of Eve, it is easy to understand who 
are meant by the woman and her seed. The true church 
of God in every age—whether you consider it as represented 
by its head, which is Christ; whether you survey it collect- 


THE FIRST PROPHECY. 165 


ively as a body, or resolve it into its separate members— 
this true church of God must be regarded as denoted by the 
woman and her seed. And though you may think—for we 
wish, as we proceed, to anticipate objections—that, if Eve 
be the church, it is strange that her seed should be also the 
church, yet it is the common usage of Scripture to represent 
the church as the mother, and every new convert as a child. 
Thus, in addressing the Jewish church, and describing her 
glory and her greatness in the latter days, Isaiah saith, 
‘Thy sons shall come from far, and thy daughters shall be 
nursed at thy side.”” And again—contrasting the Jewish 
and Gentile churches—‘“ More are the children of the deso- 
late than the children of the married wife, saith the Lord.”’ 
So that although the church can be nothing more than the 
ageregate of individual believers, the inspired writers com- 
monly describe the church as a parent, and believers as the 
offspring ; and in understanding, therefore, the church and 
its members by the woman and her seed, we cannot be advo- 
cating a forced interpretation. 

And now we have made a long advance towards the 
thorough elucidation of the prophecy. We have shown 
you, that, inasmuch as the enmity is supernaturally put, it 
can only exist in a portion of mankind. We then en- 
deavored to ascertain this portion: and we found that the 
true church of God, in every age, comprehends all those who 
war with Satan and his seed. So that the representation 
of the prediction—a representation whose justice we have 
yet to examine—is simply that of a perpetual conflict, on 
this earth, between wicked angels and wicked men on the 
one side, and the church of God, or the company of true 
believers, on the other; such conflict, though occasioning 
partial injury to the church, always issuing in the discom- 
fiture of the wicked. 

We now set ourselves to demonstrate the accuracy of this 
representation. We have already said that there are three 


166 HENRY MELVILLE, 


points of view in which the church may be regarded. We 
may consider it, as represented by its head, which is Christ ; 
secondly, collectively as a body; thirdly, as resolved into its 
separate members. We shall endeavor to show you briefly, 
in each of these cases, the fidelity of the description, ‘It 
shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”’ 

Now the enmity was never put in such overpowering 
measure, as when the man Christ Jesus was its residence. 
It was in Christ Jesus in one sense naturally, and in another 
supernaturally. He was born pure, and with a native hatred 
of sin; but then he had been miraculously generated, in 
order that his nature might be thus hostile to evil. And 
never did there move the being on this earth who hated sin 
with as perfect a hatred, or who was as odious in return to 
all the emissaries of darkness. It was just the holiness of 
the Mediator which stirred up against him all the passions 
of a profligate world, and provoked that fury of assault 
which rushed in from the hosts of reprobate spirits. There 
was thrown a perpetual reproach on a proud and sensual 
generation, by the spotlessness of that righteous individual, 
‘who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth.” 
(1 Pet. ii. 22.) And if he had not been so far separated, 
by the purities of life and conversation, from all others 
of his nature; or if vice had received a somewhat less tre- 
mendous rebuke from the blamelessness of his every action ; 
we may be sure that his might and benevolence would have 
gathered the nation to his discipleship, and that the multi- 
tude would never have been worked up to demand his 
crucifixion. 

The great secret of the opposition to Christ lay in the 
fact, that he was not such an one as ourselves. We are 
accustomed to think that the lowliness of his condition, and 
the want of external majesty and pomp, moved the Jews to 
reject their Messiah: yet it is by no means clear that these 
were, in the main, the producing causes of rejection. If. 


THE FIRST PROPHECY. 167 


Christ came not with the purple and circumstance of human 
sovereignty, he displayed the possession of a supernatural 
power, which, even on the most carnal calculation, was more 
valuable, because more effective, than the staunchest appa- 
ratus of earthly supremacy. The peasant, who could work 
the miracles which Christ worked, would be admitted, on all 
hands, to have mightier engines at his disposal than the 
prince who is clothed with the ermine and followed by the 
warriors. And if the Jews looked for a Messiah who would 
lead them to mastery over enemies, then, we contend, there 
was everything in Christ to induce them to give him their 
allegiance. ‘The power which could vanquish death by a 
word might cause hosts to fall, as fell the hosts of Sen- 
nacherib; and where then was the foe who could have 
resisted the leader ? 

We cannot, therefore, think that it was merely the 
absence of human pageantry which moved the great ones 
of Judea to throw scorn upon Jesus. It is true, they were 
expecting an earthly deliverer. But Christ displayed pre- 
cisely those powers which, wielded by Moses, had prevailed 
to deliver their nation from Egypt; and assuredly then, 
if that strength dwelt in Jesus which had discomfited Pha- 
raoh, and broken the thraldom of centuries, it could not 
have been the proved incapacity of effecting temporal 
deliverance which induced pharisees and scribes to reject 
their Messiah. They could have tolerated the meanness 
of his parentage; for that was more than compensated by 
the majesty of his power. They could have endured the 
lowliness of his appearance; for they could set against it 
his evident communion with divinity. 

But the righteous fervor with which Christ denounced 
every abomination in the land; the untainted purity by 
which he shamed the “ whited sepulchres’’ who deceived the 
people by the appearance of sanctity; the rich loveliness 
of a character in which zeal for God’s glory was unceasingly 


168 HENRY MELVILLE, 


_ 


uppermost; the beautiful lustre which encompassed a being 
who could hate only one thing, but that one thing sin; these 
were the producing causes of bitter hostility ; and they who 
would have hailed the wonder-worker with the shout and the 
plaudit, had he allowed some license to the evil passions of 
our nature, gave him nothing but the sneer and the execra- 
tion, when he waged open war with lust and hypocrisy. 

And thus it was that enmity, the fiercest and most inveter- 
ate, was put between the seed of the woman and the seed of 
the serpent. The serpent himself came to the assistance 
of his seed; evil angels. conspired with evil men; and the 
whole energies of apostasy gathered themselves to the effort 
of destroying the champion of God and of truth. Yea, and 
for awhile success seemed to attend the endeavor. ‘There ~ 
was a bruising of the heel of the seed of the woman. “He 
came unto his own, and his own received him not.” (John i. 
11.) Charged only with an embassage of mercy; sent by 
the Father—not to condemn the world, though rebellion had 
overspread its provinces, and there was done the foulest 
despite to God, in its every section, and by its every tenant 
—hbut that the world through him might have life; he was, 
nevertheless, scorned as a deceiver, and hunted down as a 
malefactor. And if it were a bruising of the heel, that he 
should be “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” 
(Isaiah lili. 3); that a nation should despise him, and 
friends deny and forsake and betray him; that he should be 
buffeted with temptation, convulsed by agony, lacerated by 
stripes, pierced by nails, crowned with thorns; then was the 
heel of the Redeemer bruised by Satan, for to all this injury 
the fallen angel instigated and nerved his seed. But though 
the heel was bruised, this was the whole extent of effected 
damage. There was no real advantage gained over the 
Mediator: on the contrary, whilst Satan was in the act of 
bruising Christ’s heel, Christ was in the act of bruising 
Satan’s head. The Saviour, indeed, exposed himself to 


THE FIRST PROPHECY. 169 


every kind of insult and wrong. Whilst enduring “the con- 
tradiction of sinners against himself”’ (Heb. xii. 3), it is not 
to be denied that a strange result was brought round by the 
machinations of the evil ones; for suffering, which is the 
attendant on sinfulness, was made to empty all its pangs 
into the bosom of innocence. And seeing that his holiness 
should have exempted his humanity from all kinsmanship 
with sorrow and anguish, we are free to allow that the heel 
was bruised, when pain found entrance into this humanity, 
and grief, heavier than had oppressed any being of our 
race, weighed down his over-wrought spirit. 

But, then, there was not an iota of his sufferings which 
went not towards liquidating the vast debt which man owed 
to God, and which, therefore, contributed not to our redemp- 
tion from bondage. There was not a pang by which the 
Mediator was torn, and not a grief by which his soul was 
disquieted, which helped not on the achievement of human 
deliverance, and which, therefore, dealt not out a blow to 
the despotism of Satan. So that, from the beginning, the 
bruising of Christ’s heel was the bruising of Satan’s head. 
In prevailing, so far as he did prevail, against Christ, Satan 
was only effecting his own discomfiture and downfall. He 
touched the heel, he could not touch the head of the Media- 
tor. If he could have seduced him into the commission of 
evil; if he could have profaned, by a solitary thought, the 
sanctuary of his soul; then it would have been the head 
which he had bruised; and, rising triumphant over man’s 
surety, he would have shouted, “ Victory!” and this crea- 
tion have become for ever his own. But whilst he could 
only cause pain, and not pollution; whilst he could dislocate 
by agony, but not defile by impurity; he reached indeed the 
heel, but came not near the head; and, making the Saviour’s 
lifetime one dark series of afllictions, weakened, at every 
step, his own hold upon humanity. 

And when, at last, he so bruised the heel as to nail Christ 


170 HENRY MELVILLE. 


to the cross, amid the loathings and revilings of the multi- 
tude, then it was that his own head was bruised, even to the 
being crushed. ‘Through death,’ we are told, ‘ Christ. 
Jesus destroyed him that had the power of death, that is, 
the devil.” (Heb. 11.14.) He fell indeed; and evil angels, 
and evil men, might have thought him for ever defeated. 
But in grasping this mighty prey, death paralyzed itself ; in 
breaking down the temple, Satan demolished his own throne. 
It was, as ye all know, by dying, that Christ finished the 
achievement which, from all eternity, he had coyenanted to 
undertake. By dying, he reinstated fallen man in the posi- 
tion from which he had been hurled. Death came against 
the Mediator; but, in submitting to it, Christ, if we may use 
such image, seized on the destroyer, and, waving the skeleton- 
form as a sceptre over this creation, broke the spell of a 
thousand generations, dashing away the chains, and opening 
the graves, of an oppressed and rifled population. And 
when he had died, and descended into the grave, and 
returned without seeing corruption, then was it made pos- 
sible that every child of Adam might be emancipated from 
the dominion of evil; and, in place of the woe and the 
shame which transgression had won as the heritage of man, 
there was the beautiful brightness of a purchased immor- 
tality wooing the acceptance of the sons and daughters of 
our race. ‘The strong man armed had kept his goods in 
peace ; and Satan, having seduced men to be his companions 
in rebellion, might have felt secure of having them as his 
companions in torment. But the stronger than he drew 
nigh, and, measuring weapons with him in the garden, and 
on the cross, received wounds which were but trophies of 
victory, and dealt wounds which annihilated power. And 
when, bruised indeed, yet only marked with honorable scars 
which told out his triumph to the loftiest orders of intelligent 
being, the Redeemer of mankind soared on high, and sent 
proclamation through the universe, that death was abolished, 
and the ruined redeemed, and the gates of heaven thrown open 


THE FIRST PROPHECY. ie 


to the rebel and the outcast, was there not an accomplishment, 
the most literal and the most energetic, of that prediction 
which declared to Satan concerning the seed of the woman, 
‘‘it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel ?”’ 
Such ‘is the first and great fulfilment of the prophecy. The 
church, represented by its head who was specially the seed of 
the woman, overthrew the devil in one decisive and desperate 
struggle, and, though not itself unwounded, received no blow 
which rebounded not to the crushing its opponent. 
_ We proceed, secondly, to consider the church collectively 
as a body. We need scarcely observe that, from the first, 
the righteous amongst men have been objects of the com- 
bined ‘assault of their evil fellows and evil angels. The 
enmity has been put, and strikingly developed. On the one 
hand, it has been the endeavor of the church to vindicate 
God’s honor, and arrest the workings of wickedness: on the 
other, it has been the effort of the serpent and his seed to 
sweep from the earth these upholders of piety. And though 
the promise has all along been verified, that the gates of hell 
shall not prevail against the church, it cannot be denied that 
a great measure of success has attended the strivings of the 
adversary. If you only call to mind what fierce persecution 
has rushed against the righteous; how by one engine or 
another there has been, oftentimes, almost a thorough 
extinction of the very name of Christianity; and how, when 
outwardly there has been peace, tares, sown by the enemy, 
haye sent up a harvest of perilous heresies ; you cannot with- 
hold your acknowledgment that Satan has bruised the heel 
of the church. -But he has done nothing more. If he have 
hewn down thousands by the sword, and consumed thousands 
at the stake, thousands have sprung forward to fill up the 
breach; and if he have succeeded in pouring forth a flood 
of pestilential doctrine, there have arisen staunch advoéates 
of truth who have stemmed the torrent, and snatched the 
articles of faith, uninjured, from the deluge. There has 
never been the time when God has been left without a witness 


172 HENRY MELVILLE. 


upon earth. And though the church has often been sickly 
and weak; though the best blood has been drained from her 
veins, and a languor, like that of moral palsy, has settled on 
her limbs; still life hath never been wholly extinguished ; 
but, after awhile, the sinking energies have been marvel- 
lously recruited, and the worn and wasted body has risen up 
more athletic than before, and displayed to the nations all 
the vigor of renovated youth. 

So that only the heel has been bruised. And since, up to 
the second advent of the Lord, the church shall be battered 
with heresy, and persecution, and infidelity, we look not, 
under the present dispensation, for discontinuance of this 
bruising of the heel. Yet, while Satan is bruising the 
church’s heel, the church, by God’s help, is bruising Satan’s 
head. The church may be compelled to prophesy in sack- 
cloth.” Affliction may be her portion, as it was that of her 
glorified head. But the church is, throughout, God’s wit- 
ness upon earth. ‘The church is God’s instrument for carry- 
ing on those purposes which shall terminate in the final setting 
up of the Mediator’s kingdom. And, oh, there is not won 
over a single soul to Christ, and the Gospel message makes 
not its way to a single heart, without an attendant effect as 
of a stamping on the head of the tempter: for a captive is 
delivered from the oppressor, and to deliver the slave is to 
defeat the tyrant. Thus the seed of the woman is continu- 
ally bruising the head of the serpent. And whensoever the 
church, as an engine in God’s hands, makes a successful 
stand for piety and truth; whensoever, sending out her mis- 
sionaries to the broad waste of heathenism, she demolishes 
an altar of superstition, and teaches the pagan to cast his idols 
to the mole and the bat; or whensoever, assaulting mere 
nominal Christianity, she fastens men to practice as the alone 
test of profession; then does she strike a blow which is felt 
at the very centre of the kingdom of darkness, and then is 
she experiencing a partial fulfilment of the promise, ‘* God 
shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly.” (Rom. xvi. 20.) 


THE FIRST PROPHECY. 173 


And when the fierce and on-going conflict shall be brought 
to a close; when this burdened creation shall have shaken 
off the slaves and the objects of concupiscence, and the 
church of the living God shall reign, with its head, over the 
tribes and provinces of an evangelized earth; then in the 
completeness of the triumph of righteousness shall be the 
completeness of the serpent’s discomfiture. And as the 
angel and the archangel contrast the slight injury which 
Satan could ever cause to the church, with that overwhelm- 
ing ruin which the church has, at last, hurled down upon 
Satan; as they compare the brief struggle and the ever- 
lasting glory of the one, with the shadowy success and the 
never-ending torments of the other; will they not decide, 
and tell out their decision in language of rapture and admi- 
ration, that, if ever prediction were fulfilled to the very let- 
ter, it is that which, addressed to the serpent, and describing 
the church as the seed of the woman, declared, “It shall 
bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel ?”’ 

Such is the second fulfilment of the prophecy of our text. 
The church, considered collectively as a body, is so assaulted 
by the serpent and his seed that its heel is bruised: but even 
now it offers such resistance to evil, and hereafter it shall 
triumph so signally over every opponent, that the prediction, 
“it shall bruise thy head,’’ must be received as destined to 
a literal accomplishment. 

We have yet to notice the third fulfilment. We may 
resolve the church into its separate members, and, taking 
each individual believer as the seed of the woman, show you 
how our text is realized in his experience. 

Now if there be enmity between the serpent and the church 
generally, of course there is also between the serpent and 
each member of that church. We have already given it as 
the description of a converted man, that he has been super- 
naturally excited. to a war with the devil. Whilst left in 
the darkness and alienation of nature, he submits willingly 
to the dominion of evil: evil is his element, and he neither 


174 HENRY MELVILLE. 


strives nor wishes for emancipation. But when the grace 
ef God is introduced into his heart, he will discern quickly 
the danger and hatefulness of sin, and will yield himself, in 
a higher strength than his own, to the work of resisting the 
serpent. ‘Thus enmity is put between the believer and the 
serpent and his seed. Let aman give himself to the con- 
cerns of eternity; let him, in good earnest, set about the 
business of the soul’s salvation ; and he will, assuredly, draw 
upon himself the dislike and opposition of a whole circle of 
worldly acquaintance, so that his over-preciseness and aus- 
terity will become subject of ridicule in his village or neigh- 
borhood. We quite mistake the nature both of Christianity 
and of man, if we suppose that opposition to religion can be 
limited to an age or a country. Persecution, in its most 
‘terrible forms, is only the development of a principle which 
must -unavoidably exist until either Christianity or human 
nature be altered. There is a necessary repugnance between 
Christianity and human nature. The two cannot be amalga- 
mated: one must be changed before it will combine with the 
other. And we fear that this is, in a degree, an overlooked 
truth, and that men are disposed to assign persecution to 
local or temporary causes. But we wish you to be clear on 
the fact, that-‘ the offence of the cross’ (Gal. v. 11) has not 
ceased, and cannot cease. We readily allow that the form,. 
under which the hatred manifests itself, will be sensibly 
affected by the civilization and intelligence of the age. In 
days of an imperfect refinement and a scanty literature, you 
will find this hatred unsheathing the sword, and lighting the 
pile: but when human society is at a high point of polish 
and knowledge, and the principles of religious toleration 
are well understood, there is, perhaps, comparatively small 
likelihood that savage violence will be the engine employed 
against godliness. Yet there are a hundred batteries which 
may and will be opened upon the righteous. The follower of 
Christ must calculate on many sneers, and much reviling. 
He must look to meet often with coldness and contempt, 


THE FIRST PROPHECY. 175 


harder of endurance than many forms of martyrdom; for 
the courage which could march to the stake may be daunted 
by a laugh. And, frequently, the opposition assumes a more 
decided shape. The parent will act harshly towards the 
child; the superior withdraw his countenance from the de- 
pendent; and all because of a giving heed to the directions 
of Scripture. Religion, as though it were rebellion, alienates 
the affections, and alters the wills, of fathers and guardians. 
So that we tell an individual that he blinds himself to plain 
matters of fact, if he espouse the opinion that the apostle’s 
words applied only to the first ages of Christianity, ‘all that 
will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.” (2 
Tim. iii. 12.) To “live godly in Christ Jesus’ is to have en- 
mity put between yourselves and the seed of the serpent; and 
you may be assured, that, unless this enmity be merely nomi- . 
nal on your side, it will manifest itself by acts on the other. 

Thus the prophecy of our text announces, what has been 
verified by the history of all ages, that no man can serve 
God without uniting against himself evil men and evil angels. 
Evil angels will assault him, alarmed that their prey is 
escaping from their grasp. Evil men, rebuked by his ex- 
ample, will become agents of the serpent, and strive to 
wrench him from his righteousness. 

But what, after all, is the amount of injury which the 
serpent and his seed can cause to God’s children? Is it not 
a truth, which can only then be denied when you have 
cashiered the authority of every page of the Bible, that he 
who believes upon Christ, and who, therefore, has been 
adopted through faith into God’s family, is certain to be 
made more than conqueror, and to trample under foot every 
enemy of salvation? The conflict between a believer and 
his foes may be long and painful. The Christian may be 
often forced to exclaim with St. Paul, “O wretched man 
that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this 
death?” (Rom. vii. 24.) Engaged with the triple band 
of the world, the flesh, and the devil, he will experience 


176 YENRY MELVILLE. 


many partial defeats, and, surprised off his guard, or wearied 
out with watchings, will yield to temptation, and so fall into 
sin. But it is certain, certain as that God is omnipotent and 
faithful, that the once justified man shall be enabled to per- 
severe to the end; to persevere, not in an idle dependence 
on privileges, but in a struggle which, if for an instant inter- 
rupted, is sure to be vehemently renewed. And, therefore, the 
bruising of the heel is the sum total of the mischief. Thus 
much, undoubtedly, the serpent can effect. He can harass 
with temptation, and occasionally prevail. But he cannot undo 
the radical work of conversion. He cannot eject the princi- 
ple of grace; and he cannot, therefore, bring back the man 
into the condition of his slave or his subject. Thus he cannot 
wound the head of the new man. He may diminish his com- 
forts. Hemay impede his growth in holiness. He may inject 
doubts and suspicions, and thus keep him disquieted, when, if he 
would live up to his privileges, he might rejoice and be peace- 
ful. But all this, and we show you here the full sweep of 
the serpent’s power, still leaves the man a believer ; and, there- 
fore, all this, though it bruise the heel, touches not the head. 
And though the believer, like the unbeliever, must submit 
to the power of death, and tread the dark valley of that 
curse which still rests on our nature, is there experienced 
more than a bruising of the heel in the undergoing this dis- 
solution of humanity? It is an injury—for we go not with 
those who would idolize, or soften down, death—that the 
soul must be detached from the body, and sent out, a widowed 
thing, on the broad journeyings of eternity. It is an injury, 
that this curious framework of matter, as much redeemed by 
Christ as the giant-guest which it encases, must be taken | 
down, joint by joint, and rafter by rafter, and, resolved into 
its original elements, lose every trace of having been human. 
But what, we again say, is the extent of this injury? The 
foot of the destroyer shall be set upon the body; and he 
shall stamp till he have ground it into powder, and dispersed 
it to the winds. But he cannot annihilate a lonely particle. 


THE FIRST PROPHET Y. 177 


He can put no arrest on that germinating process which shall] 
yet cause the valleys and mountains of this globe to stand 
thick with a harvest of flesh. He cannot hinder my resurrec- 
tion. And when the soul, over which he hath had no power, 
rushes into the body which he shall be forced to resign, and 
the child of God stands forth a man, yet immortal, compound 
of flesh and spirit, but each pure, each indestructible ;—oh, 
though Satan may have battered at his peace during a long 
earthly pilgrimage; though he may have marred his happi- 
ness by successful temptation; though he may have detained 
for centuries his body in corruption: will not the inflicted in- 
jury appear to have been so trivial and insignificant, that a 
bruising of the heel, in place of falling short of the matter- 
of-fact, shall itself seem almost an overwrought description ? 

And, all the while, though Satan can only bruise the 
believer’s heel, the believer is bruising Satan’s head. If the 
believer be one who fights the serpent, and finally conquers, 
by that final conquest the serpent’s head is bruised. If he 
be naturally the slave of the serpent; if he rebel against 
the tyrant, throw off his chains, and vanquish him, fighting 
inch by inch the ground to freedom and glory; then he 
bruises the serpent’s head. If two beings are antagonists, 
he who decisively overcomes bruises the head of his oppo- 
nent. But the believer and the serpent are antagonists. 
The believer gains completely the mastery over the serpent. 
And, therefore, the result of the contest is the fulfilment of 
the prediction that the seed of the woman shall bruise the 
head of the serpent. Oh, if, as we well know, the repent- 
ance of a single sinner send a new and exquisite delight 
down the ranks of the hosts of heaven, and cause the sweep- 
ing of a rich and glorious anthem from the countless harps 
of the sky, can we doubt that the same event spreads con- 
sternation through the legions of fallen spirits, and strikes, 
like a death-blow, on their haughty and malignant leader ? 
Ay, and we believe that never is Satan so taught his subju- 
gated estate, as when a soul, which he had counted as his 

M 


178 HENRY MELVILLE, 


own, escapes ‘‘as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers’’ 
(Psalm cxxiy. 7), and seeks and finds protection in Jesus. 
If it be then that Christ sees ‘of the travail of his soul’ 
(Isaiah liii, 11), it must be then that the serpent tastes all 
the bitterness of defeat. And when the warfare is over, 
and the spirit, which he hath longed to destroy, soars away, 
convoyed by the angels which wait on the heirs of salvation, 
must it not be then that the consciousness of lost mastery 
seizes, with crushing force, on the proud foe of our race; and 
does not that fierce cry of disappointment which seems to follow 
the ascending soul, causing her to feel herself only ‘“ searcely 
saved”’ (1 Pet. iv. 18), testify that, in thus winning a heritage 
of glory, the believer hath bruised the head of the serpent ? 

We shall not examine further this third fulfilment of the 
prophecy of our text. But we think that when you contrast 
the slight injury which Satan, at the worst, can cause to, a 
believer, with the mighty blow which the deliverance of a 
believer deals out to Satan; the nothingness, at last, of the 
harm done to God’s people, with that fearful discomfiture 
which their individual rescue fastens on the devil; you will 
confess, that, considering the church as resolved into its 
separate members, just as when you survey it collectively as 
a body, or as represented by its head, there is a literal 
accomplishment of this prediction to the serpent concerning 
the seed of the woman, ‘it shall bruise thy head, and thou 
shalt bruise his heel.”’ 

We have thus, as we trust, shown you that the prophecy 
of our text extends itself over the whole surface of time, so 
that, from the fall of Adam, it has been receiving accom- 
plishment, and will continue being fulfilled until ‘‘ death and 
hell are cast into the lake of fire.”” (Rev. xx. 14.) It was a 
wonderful announcement, and, if even but imperfectly un- 
derstood, must have confounded the serpent, and cheered 
Adam and Eve. Dust shalt thou eat, foe of humankind, 
when this long-oppressed creation is delivered from thy des-’ 
potism. As though to mark to us that there shall be no 


PH rARST PROPHECY. 179 


suspension of the doom of our destroyer, whilst this earth 
rejoices in the restitution of all things, Isaiah, in describing 
millennial harmony, still leaves the serpent under the sen- 
tence of our text. ‘The wolf and the lamb shall feed 
together ; and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock; and 
dust shall be the serpent’s meat.” (Isa. xv. 25.) There comes 
a day of deliverance to every other creature, but none to the 
serpent. Oh, mysterious dealing of our God! that for fallen 
angels there hath been no atonement, for fallen men a full, 
perfect, and sufficient. They were far nobler than we, of a 
loftier intelligence and more splendid endowment; yet (‘‘ how 
unsearchable are his Judgments’’) we are taken and they are 
left. ‘‘ For verily he taketh not hold of angels, but of the seed 
of Abraham he taketh hold.”’ (Heb. 11. 16, marginal reading.) 

And shall we, thus singled out and made objects of mar- 
vellous mercy, refuse to be delivered, and take our portion 
with those who are both fallen and. unredeemed? Shall we 
eat the dust, when we may eat of “the bread which. cometh 
down from heaven?” (John vi. 50.) Covetous man! thy 
money is the dust; thou art eating the serpent’s meat. 
Sensual man! thy gratifications are of the dust; thou art 
eating the serpent’s meat. Ambitious man! thine honors 
are of the dust; thou art eating the serpent’s meat. O God, 
put enmity between us and the serpent! Will ye, every one 
of you, use that short prayer ere ye lie down to rest this 
night, O God, put enmity between us and the serpent? 
If ye are not at enmity, his folds are round your limbs. 
If ye are not at enmity, his sting is at your heart. But if 
ye will, henceforward, count him a foe, oppose him in,God’s 
strength, and attack him with the “sword of the Spirit” 
(Kph. vi. 17); then, though ye may have your seasons of 
disaster and depression, the promise stands sure that ye 
shall finally overcome; and it shall be proved by each one 
in this assembly, that, though the serpent may bruise the 
heel of the seed of the woman, yet, at last, the seed of the 
woman always bruises the head of thé serpent. 


Ge 
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF JESUS OF NAZARETH. 


WAYLAND. 


[Franets Wayianp, D.D., LL. D., as eminent a philosopher as 
divine, was born in New York, March 11th 1796. He studied at 
Union College and Andover Theological Seminary. After a five years’ 
pastorate in the First Baptist Church, Boston, he was appointed in 
1827 president of Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, and 
also assumed a ministerial charge in that city. He died September 
30th 1865. The Sermon entitled ‘“‘The Moral Dignity of Missions,” 
preached by him in early manhood, wonderfully strengthened the 
missionary cause at home and abroad. His ‘‘ Elements of Moral Sci- 
ence,” and ‘‘ Elements of Political Economy,’ have wisely trained 
thousands of American students. His Christian liberality was cease- 
less; for many years he gave away more than half his income. These 
words of his to a few students—‘‘ Do not, young gentlemen, throw 
away your souls without trying to save them. Make one honest effort 
for their salvation. Even if you are lost, it will be something to have 
tried ’’—led to the conversion of one who became a minister, and the 
writing of a tract, ‘One Honest Effort,” which has awakened many. 
His sons have written an appreciative ‘‘ Memoir.” By permission, 
this discourse is extracted from his ‘‘ University Sermons.’’] 


“And the apostles, when they were returned, told him all that they had 
done. And he took them, and went aside privately into a desert place, 
belonging to the city called Bethsaida. And the people when they knew 
it, followed him: and he received them, and spake unto them of the 
kingdom of God, and healed them that had need of healing. And when 
the day began to wear away, then came the twelve, and said unto him, 
Send the multitude away, that they may go into the towns and country 
round about, and lodge, and get victuals: for we are here in a desert 
place. But he said unto them, Give ye them to eat. And they said, We 
have no more but five loaves and two -fishes ; except we should go and 
buy meat for all this people. For they were about five thousand men. 
And he said to his disciples, Make them sit down by fifties in a company. 
And they did so, and made them all sit down. Then he took the five 
loaves and the two fishes and looking up to heaven, he blessed them and 
brake, and gave to the disciples to set before the multitude. And they 

(180) 


A DAY IN THE LIFE OF JESUS OF NAZARETH. 181 


did eat, and were all filled: and there was taken up of fragments that 
remained to them twelve baskets.”’—Luke ix. 10-17. 


Ir was the sagacious opinion of, I think, the late Professor 
Porson, that he would rather see a single copy of a daily 
newspaper of ancient Athens, than read all the commentaries 
upon the Grecian tragedies that have ever been written. 
The reason for this preference is obvious. A single sheet, 
similar to our daily newspapers, published in the time of 
Pericles, would admit us at once to a knowledge of the 
habits, manners, modes of opinion, political relations, social 
condition, and moral attainments of the people, such as we 
never could gain from the study of all the writers that have 
ever attempted to illustrate the nature of Grecian civiliza- 
tion. 

The same remark is true in respect to our knowledge of 
the character of individuals who have lived in a former age. 
What would we not, at the present day, give for a few pages 
of the private diary of Julius Cesar, or Cicero, or Brutus, 
or Augustus; or for the minute reminiscences of any one 
who had spent a few days in the company of either of these 
distinguished men? What a flood of light would the dis- 
covery of such’a manuscript throw upon Roman life, but 
especially upon the private opinions, the motives, the aspira- 
tions, the moral estimates, of the men whose names have 
_ become household words throughout the world! <A few such 
pages might, perchance, dissipate the authority of many a 
bulky folio on which we now rely with implicit confidence. 
Not only would the characters of these heroes of antiquity 
stand out in bolder relief than they have ever done before, 
but the individuals themselves would be brought within the 
range of our personal sympathy; and we should seem to 
commune with them as we do with an intimate acquaintance. 

It is worthy of remark, that we are favored with a larger 
portion of this kind of information, respecting Jesus of Naz- 
areth, than almost any other distinguished person that has 


182 FRANCIS WAYLAND. 


ever lived. He left no writings himself; hence all that we 
know of him has been written by others. The narrators, 
however, were the personal attendants, and not the mere 
auditors or pupils of their Master. The apostles were mem- 
bers of the family of Jesus; they travelled with him, on 
foot, throughout the length and breadth of Palestine; they 
partook with him of his frugal meals, and bore with him the 
trial of hunger, weariness, and want of shelter; they fol- 
lowed him through the lonely wilderness and the crowded 
street; they saw his miracles in every variety of form, and 
listened to his discourses in public as well-as to his explana- 
tions in private. Hence their whole narrative is instinct 
with life; a vivid picture of Jewish manners and customs, 
rendered more definite and characteristic by the moral light 
which then, for the first time, shone upon it. Hence it is 
that these few pages are replete with moral lessons that 
never weary us in the perusal, and which have been the 
source of unfailing illumination to all succeeding ages. 

The verses which [ have read, as the text of this discourse, 
may well be taken as an illustration of all that I have here 
said. They may, without impropriety, be styled a day of 
the life of Jesus of Nazareth. By observing the manner in 
which our blessed Lord spent a single day, we may form’ 
some conception of the kind of life which he ordinarily led ; 
and we may, perchance, treasure up some lessons which it 
were well if we should exemplify in our daily practice. 

The place at which these events occurred was near the 
head of the Sea of Galilee, where it receives the waters of 
the upper Jordan. This was one of the Saviour’s favorite 
places of resort. Capernaum, Chorasin, and Bethsaida, all 
in this immediate vicinity, are always spoken of in the Gos- 
pels as towns which enjoyed the largest share of his minis- 
terial labors, and were distinguished most frequently with | 
the honor of his personal presence. The scenery of the 
neighborhood is wild and romantic. To the north and west, 


A DAY IN THE LIFE OF JESUS OF NAZARETH. 183 


the eye rests on the lofty summits of Lebanon and Hermon. 
To the south, there opens upon the view the blue expanse 
of the lake, enclosed by frowning rocks, which here and 
there jut over far into the waters, and then again retire to- 
wards the land, leaving a level beach to invite the labors of 
the fisherman. The people, removed at a considerable dis- 
tance from the metropolis of Judea, cultivated those rural 
habits with which the simple tastes of the Saviour would 
most readily harmonize. Near this spot was also one of the 
most frequented fords of the Jordan, on the road from 
Damascus to Jerusalem; and thus, while residing here, he 
enjoyed unusual facilities for disseminating throughout this 
whole region a knowledge of those truths which he came on 
earth to promulgate. 

Some weeks previously to the time in which the events 
spoken of in the text occurred, our Lord had sent his disci- 
ples to announce the approach of the kingdom of heaven, 
in all the cities and villages which he himself proposed to 
visit. He conferred on them the power to work miracles, 
in attestation of their authority, and of the divine character 
of him by whom they were sent. He imposed upon them 
strict rules of conduct, and directed them, to make known 
to every one who would hear them the good news of the 
coming dispensation. As soon as he sent them forth, he 
himself went immediately abroad to teach and to preach in 
their cities. “As their Master and Lord, he might reasonably 
have claimed exemption from the personal toil and the rigid 
self-denials to which they were by necessity subjected. But 
he laid claim to no such exemption. He commenced with- 
out delay the performance of the very same duties which he 
had imposed upon them. He felt himself under obligation 
to set an example of obedience to his own rules. ‘‘ The Son 
of man,” said he, “came not to be ministered unto, but to 
minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.” “ Which,” 
said he, “is greater, he that sitteth at meat,.or he that 


184 FRANCIS WAYLAND. 


serveth? but I am among you as he that serveth.”’ Would 
it not be well, if, in this respect, we copied more minutely 
the example of our Lord, and held ourselves responsible for 
the performance of the very same duties which we so will- 
ingly impose upon.our brethren? We best prove that we 
believe an act obligatory, when we commence the performance 
of it ourselves. Many zealous Christians employ themselves 
in no other labor than that of urging their brethren to effort. 
Our Saviour acted otherwise. In this respect, his example 
is specially to be imitated by his ministers. When they 
urge upon others a moral duty, they must be the first to 
perform it. When they inculcate an act of self-denial, they 
themselves must make the noblest sacrifice. Can we con- 
ceive of anything which would so much increase the moral 
power of the ministry, and rouse to a flame the dormant 
energy of the churches, as obedience to this teaching of 
Christ by the preachers of his gospel ? 

It seems that the Saviour had selected a well-known spot, 
at the head of the lake, for the place of meeting for his 
apostles, after this their first missionary tour had been com- 
pleted. ‘The apostles gathered themselves unto Jesus, and 
told him all things, both what they had done, and what they _ 
had taught.’’ There is something delightful in this filial 
confidence which these simple-hearted men reposed in their 
Almighty Redeemer. ‘They told him of their success and 
their failure, of their wisdom and their folly, of their reliance 
and their unbelief. We can almost imagine ourselves spec- 
tators of this meeting between Christ and them, after this 
their first separation from each other. The place appointed 
was most probably some well-known locality on the shore of 
the lake, under the shadow of its overhanging rocks, where 
the cool air from the bosom of the water refreshed each 
returning laborer, as he came back beaten out with the 
fatigues of travel, under the burning sun of Syria. You can 
imagine the joy with which each drew near to the Master, 


A DAY IN THE LIFE OF JESUS OF NAZARETH. 185 


after this temporary absence; and the honest greetings with 
which every new comer was welcomed by those who had 
chanced to arrive before him. We can seem to perceive 
the Saviour of men listening with affectionate earnestness to 
the recital of their various adventures; and interposing, 
from time to time, a word either of encouragement or of 
caution, as the character and circumstances of each narrator 
required it. The bosom of each was unveiled before the 
Searcher of hearts, and the consolation which each one 
needed was bestowed upon him abundantly. The toilsome- 
ness of their journey was no longer remembered, as each one 
received from the Son of God the smile of his approbation. 
That was truly a joyful meeting. Of all that company there 
is not one who has forgotten that day; nor will he forget it 
ever. With unreserved frankness they told Jesus of all that 
they had done, and what they had taught; of all their acts, 
and all their conversations. Would it not be better for us, 
if we cultivated more assiduously this habit of intimate inter- 
course with the Saviour? Were we every day to tell Jesus of 
all that we have done and said; did we spread before him our 
joys and our sorrows, our faults and our infirmities, our 
successes and our failures, we should be saved from many an 
error and many asin. Setting ‘‘ the Lord always before us, 
he would be on our right hand, and we should not be 
moved.” “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most 
_ High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.” 

The Saviour perceived that the apostles needed much in- 
struction which could not be communicated in a place where 
both he and they were so well known. They had committed 
many errors, which he preferred to correct in private. By 
doing his will, they had learned to repose greater confidence 
in his wisdom, and were prepared to receive from him more 
Important instruction. But these lessons could not be 
delivered in the hearing of a promiscuous audience. Nor 
_ was this all. He perceived that the apostles were worn out 


186 FRANOIS* WAYLAND. 


with their labors, and needed repose. Surrounded as they 
were by the multitude, which had already begun to collect 
about them, rest and retirement were equally impossible. 
““There were many coming and going, and they had no 
leisure, even so much as to eat.’ He therefore said to 
them, ‘‘Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and 
rest a while.”’ For this purpose, he “‘ took ship, and crossed 
over with his disciples Blase ay went into a desert place 
belonging to Bethsaida.”’ 

The waltatan of Christ imposes upon us duties of retire- 
ment, as well as duties of publicity. The apostles had been 
for some time past before the eyes of all men, preaching and 
working miracles. Their souls needed retirement. ‘ Soli- 
tude,” said Cecil, ‘‘is my great ordinance.”’ They would be 
greatly improved by private communion both with him and 
with each other. It was for the purpose of affording them 
such a season of moral recreation, that our Lord withdrew 
them from the public gaze into a desert place. Nor was 
this all. Their labor for some weeks past had been severe. 
They had travelled on foot under a tropical sun, reasoning 
with unbelievers, instructing the ignorant, and comforting 
the cast-down. Called upon, at all hours, both of the day 
and night, to work cures on those that were oppressed with dis- 
eases, their bodies, no less than their spirits, needed rest. 
Our Lord saw this, and he made provision for it. He with- 
drew them from labor, that they might find, though it were 
but for a day, the repose which their exhausted natures 
demanded. The religion of Christ is ever merciful, and ever 
consistent in its benevolence. It is thoughtful of the bene- 
factor as well as of the recipient. It requires of us all, labor 
and self-sacrifice, but to these it affixes a limit. It never 
commands us to ruin our health and enfeeble our minds by 
unnatural exhaustion. It teaches us to obey the laws of our 
physical organization, and to prepare ourselves for the labors 
of to-morrow by the judiciously conducted labors of to-day. 


A DAY IN THE LIFE OF JESUS OF NAZARETH. 187 


It was on this principle that our Lord conducted in his 
intercourse with his disciples. ‘‘ He knew their frame, and 
remembered that they were dust.”’ 

May we not from this incident derive a lesson of practical 
instruction? I well know that there are persons who are 
always sparing themselves, who, while it is difficult to tell 
what they do, are always complaining of the crushing weight 
of their labors, and who are rather exhausted with the dread 
of what they shall do, than with the experience of what they 
have actually done. It is not of these that we speak. 
Those who do not labor have no need of rest. It is to the 
honest, the painstaking, the laborious, that we address the 
example in the text. Wesometimes meet with the indus- 
trious, self-denying servant of Christ, in feeble health, and 
with an exhausted nature, bemoaning his condition, and 
condemning himself because he can accomplish no more, 
while so much yet remains to be done. ‘To such a one we 
may safely present the example of the blessed Saviour. When 
his apostles had done to the utmost of their strength, 
although the harvest was great, and the laborers few, he did 
not urge upon them additional labor, nor tell them that 
because there was so much to be done they must never cease 
from doing. No: he tells them to turn aside and rest for a 
while. It is as though he had said, “‘ Your strength is ex- 
hausted ; you cannot be qualified for subsequent duty until 
you be refreshed. Economize, then, your power, that you . 
may accomplish the more.’ The Saviour addresses the 
same language to us now. When we are worn down in his 
service, as in any other, he would have us rest, not for the 
sake of self-indulgence, but that we may be the better pre- 
pared for future effort. We do nothing at variance with his 
will, when we, with a good conscience, use the liberty which 
he has thus conceded to us. 

Jesus, with his disciples, crossed the water, and entered 
the desert; that is, the sparsely inhabited country of Beth- 


188 | FRANCOIS WAYLAND. 


saida. Desert, or wilderness, in the New Testament, does 
not mean an arid waste, but pasture land, forest, or any 
district to which one could retire for seclusion. Here, in 
the cool and tranquil neighborhood of the lake, he began to 
instruct his disciples, and, without interruption, make known 
to them the mysteries of the kingdom. It was one of those 
seasons that the Saviour himself rarely enjoyed. Every- 
thing tended to repose: the rustling leaves, the rippling 
waves, the song of the birds, heard more distinctly in this 
rural solitude, all served to calm the spirit ruffled by the 
agitations of the world, and prepare it to listen to the truths 
which unveil to us eternity. Here our Lord could unbosom | 
himself, without reserve, to his chosen few, and hold with 
them that. communion which he was rarely permitted to 
enjoy during his ministry on earth. 

Soon, however, the whole scene is changed. The multi- 
tude, whom he had go recently left, having observed the 
direction in which he had gone, have discovered the place of 
his retreat. An immense crowd approaches, and the little 
company is surrounded by a dense mass of human beings 
pressing upon them on every side. ‘These are, however, 
only the pioneers. At last, five thousand men, besides 
women and children, are beheld thronging around them. 

Some of these suitors present most importunate claims. 
They are in search of cure for diseases which have bafiled 
the skill of the medical profession, and, as a last resort, they 
have come to the Messiah for aid. Here was a parent bring- 
ing a consumptive child. There were children bearing on a 
couch a paralytic parent. Here was a sister leading a 
brother blind from his birth, while her supplications were 
drowned by the shout of a frenzied lunatic who was standing 
by her side. Every one, believing his own claim to be the 
most urgent, pressed forward with selfish importunity. Hach 
one, caring for no other than himself, was striving to attain 
the front rank, while those behind, disappointed, and fearing 


A DAY IN THE LIFE OF JESUS OF NAZARETH. 189 


to lose this important opportunity, were eager to occupy 
the places of those more fortunate than themselves. The 
necessary tumult and disorder of such a scene you can bet- 
ter imagine than I can describe. 

This was, doubtless, by no means a welcome interruption. 
The apostles needed the time for rest; for they were worn 
out in the public service. They wanted it for instruction; 
for such opportunities of intercourse with Christ were rare. 
But what did they do? Did our Lord inform the multitude 
that this day was set apart for their own refreshment 
and improvement, and that they could not be interrupted? - 
As he beheld them approaching, did he quietly take to his 
boat, and leave them to go home disappointed? Did he 
plead his own convenience, or his need of repose, as any 
reason for not attending to the pressing necessities of his 
fellow-men ? 

No, my brethren, very far from it. The providence of 
God had brought these multitudes before him, and that same 
providence forbade him to send them away unblessed. He 
at once broke up the conference with his disciples, and 
addressed himself to the work before him. His instructions 
were of inestimable importance; but I doubt if even they 
were as important as the example of deep humility, exhaust- 
less kindness, and affecting compassion which he here exhi- 
_bited. When the Master places work before us which can be 
done at no other time, our convenience must yield to other 
men’s necessities. ‘The Son of man came not to be minis- 
tered unto, but to minister.’’ You can imagine to yourself 
the Saviour rising from his seat, in the midst of his disciples, 
and presenting himself to the approaching multitudes. His 
calm dignity awes into silence this tumultuous gathering of 
the people. Those who came out to witness the tricks of an 
empiric, or listen to the ravings of a fanatic, find them- 
selves, unexpectedly, in a presence that repels every emotion 
but that of profound veneration. The light-hearted and 


190 FRANCIS WAYLAND. 


frivolous are awe-struck by the unearthly majesty that seems 
to clothe the Messiah as with a garment. And yet it was a 
majesty that shone forth conspicuous, most of all, by the 
manifestation of unparalleled goodness. Every eye that 
met the eye ofthe Saviour quailed before him; for it 
looked into a soul that had never sinned; and the spirit of 
the sinner felt, for the first time, the full power of immacu- 
late virtue. 

Thus the Saviour passed among the crowd, and “healed 
all that had need of healing.”’ The lame walked, the lepers 
were cleansed, the blind received their sight, the paralytic 
were restored to soundness, and the bloom of health revisited 
the cheeks of those that but just now were sick unto 
death. 

The work to be done for the bodies of men was accom- 
plished, and there yet remained some hours of the summer’s 
day unconsumed. The power and goodness displayed in 
this miraculous healing, would naturally predispose the 
people to listen to the instructions of the Saviour. This was 
too valuable an opportunity to be lost. Our Lord therefore 
proceeded to speak to them of the things concerning the 
kingdom of God. We can seem to perceive the Saviour 
seeking an eminence from whence he could the more con- 
veniently address this vast assembly. You hear him unfold 
the laws of God’s moral government. He unmasks the 
hypocrisy of the Pharisees; he rebukes the infidelity of the 
Sadducees; he exposes the folly of the frivolous, as well as 
of the selfish worldling; he speaks peaceably to the humble 
penitent; he encourages the meek, and comforts those that 
be cast down. The intellect and the conscience of this vast 
assembly are swayed at his will. The soul of man bows 
down in reverence in the presence of its Creator. ‘ He still- 
eth the noise of the seas, the noise of their waves, and 
the tumult of the people.’ As he closes his address, 
every eye is moistened with compunction for sin. Hvery 


A DAY IN THE LIFE OF JESUS OF NAZARETH. 191 


soul cherishes the hope of amendment. very one is con- 
scious that a new moral light has dawned upon his soul, and 
that a new moral universe has been unveiled to his spiritual 
vision. As the closing words of the Saviour fell upon their 
ears, the whole multitude stood for a while unmoved, as 
though transfixed to the earth by some mighty spell; until, 
at last, the murmur is heard from thousands of voices, 
*‘ Never man spake like this man.”’ 

But the shades of evening are gathering around them. 
The multitude have nothing to eat. To send them away 
fasting would be inhuman, for divers of them came from far, 
and many were women and children, who could not perform 
their journey homeward without previous refreshment. To 
purchase food in the surrounding towns and villages would 
be difficult; but even were this possible, whence could the 
necessary funds be provided? A famishing multitude was 
thus unexpectedly cast upon the bounty of our Lord. He 
had not tempted God by leading them into the wilderness. 
They came to him of themselves, to hear his words and to 
be healed of their infirmities. He could not “send them 
away fasting, lest they should faint by the way.” In this 
dilemma, what was to be done? He puts this question to 
his disciples, and they can suggest no means of relief. The 
little stock of provisions which they had brought with them 
was barely sufficient for themselves.. They can perceive no 
“means whatever by which the multitude can be fed, and they 
at once confess it. 

The Saviour, however, commands the twelve to give them 
to eat. They produce their slender store of provisions, 
amounting to five loaves and two small fishes. He com- 
mands the multitude to sit down by companies on the grass. 
As soon as silence is obtained, he lifts up his eyes to heaven, 
and supplicates the blessing of God upon their scanty meal. 
He begins to break the loaves and fishes, and distribute them 
to his disciples, and his disciples distribute them to the multi- 


192 FRANCIS WAYLAND. 


tude. He continues to break and distribute. Basket after 
basket is filled and emptied, yet the supply is undiminished. 
Food is carried in abundance to the famishing thousands. 
Company after company is supplied with food, but the five 
loaves and the two fishes remain unexhausted. At last, the 
baskets are returned full, and it is announced that the wants 
of the multitude are supplied. _The miracle then ceases, 
and the multiplication of food is at an end. 

But even here the provident care of the Saviour is mani- 
fested. Although this food has been so easily provided, it is 
not right that it be lightly suffered to perish. Christ wrought 
no miracles for the sake of teaching men wastefulness. That 
food, by what means soever provided, was a creature of God, 
and it were sin to allow it to decay without accomplishing 
the purposes for which it was created. ‘‘Gather up the 
fragments,” said the Master of the feast, “‘ that nothing be 
lost.” “ And they gathered up the fragments that remained, 
twelve baskets full.” 

Dissimilar as are our circumstances to those of our Lord, 
we may learn from this latter incident a lesson of instruction. 

In the first place, as I have remarked, the Saviour did 
not lead the multitude into the wilderness without making 
provision for their sustenance. This would have been pre- 
sumption. They followed him without his command, and he 
found himself with them in this necessity. He had provided 
for his own wants, but they had not provided for theirs. 
The providence of God had, however, placed him in his 
present circumstances, and he might therefore properly look 
to Providence for deliverance. This event, then, furnishes 
the rule by which we are to be governed. When we plunge 
ourselves into difficulty, by a neglect of the means or by a 
misuse of the faculties which God has bestowed upon us, it 
is to be expected that he will leave us to our own devices. 
But when, in the honest discharge of our duties, we find 
ourselves in circumstances beyond the reach of human aid, 


A DAY IN THE LIFE OF JESUS OF NAZARETH. 193 


we then may confidently look up to God for deliverance. 
He will always take care of us while we are in the spot 
where he has placed-us. When he appoints for us trials, he 
also appoints for us the means of escape. The path of duty, 
though it may seem arduous, is ever the path of safety. We 
can more easily maintain ourselves in the most difficult posi- 
tion, God being our helper, than in apparent security relying 
on our own strength. 

The Saviour, in full reliance upon God, with only five 
loaves and two fishes, commenced the distribution of food 
amongst this vast multitude. Though his whole store was 
barely sufficient to supply the wants of his immediate family, 
he began to share it with the thousands who surrounded him. 
Small as was his provision at the commencement, it remained 
unconsumed until the deed of mercy was done, and the 
wants of the famishing host were supplied. Nor were the 
disciples losers by this act of charity. After the multitude 
had eaten and were satisfied, twelve baskets full of frag- 
ments remained, a reward for their deed of benevolence. 

From this portion of the narrative, we may, I think, learn 
that if we act in faith, and in the spirit of Christian love, 
we may frequently be justified in commencing the most 
important good work, even when in possession of apparently 
inadequate means. If the work be of God, he will furnish 
us with helpers as fast as they are needed. In all ages, God 
has rewarded abundantly simple trust in him, and has 
bestowed upon it the highest honor. We must, however, 
remember the conditions upon which alone we may expect 
his aid, lest we be led into fanaticism. The service which 
we undertake must be such as God has commanded, and his 
providence must either designate us for the work, or, at 
least, open the door by which we shall enter upon it. It 
must be God’s work, and not our own; for the good of 
others, and not for the gratification of our own passions ; 
and, in the doing of it, we must, first of all, make sacrifice 
(i N 


194 FRANCIS WAYLAND, 


of ourselves, and not of others. Under such circumstances, 
there is hardly a good design which we may not undertake 
with cheerful hopes of success, for God has promised us his 
assistance. ‘If God be for us, who can be against us?” 
The calculations of the men of this world are of small 
account in such a matter. It would have provoked the 
smile of an infidel to behold the Saviour commencing the 
work of feeding five thousand men with a handful of pro- 
visions. But the supply increased as fast as it was needed, 
and it ceased not until all that he had prayed for was accom- 
plished. 

Perhaps, also, we may learn from this incident another 
lesson. If I mistake not, it suggests to us that in works of 
benevolence we are accustomed to rely too much on human, 
and too little on divine, aid. When we attempt to do good, 
we commence by forming large associations, and suppose 
that our success depends upon the number of men whom we 
can unite in the promotion of our undertaking. Every one 
is apt thus.to forget his own personal duty, and rely upon 
the labor of others, and it is well if he does not put his 
organization in the place of God himself. Would it not be 
better if we made benevolence much more a matter between 
God and our own souls, each one doing with his own hands, 
in firm reliance on divine aid, the work which Providence 
has placed directly before him? Our Lord did not send to 
the villages round about to organize a general effort to 
relieve the famishing. In reliance upon God, he set about 
the work himself, with just such means as God had afforded 
him. All the miracles of benevolence have, if I mistake not, 
been wrought in the same manner. The little band of dis- 
ciples in Jerusalem accomplished more for the conversion of 
the world than all the Christians of the present day united. 
And why? Because every individual Christian felt that the 
conversion of the world was a work for which he himself, and 
not an abstraction that he called the church, was responsible. 


A DAY IN THE LIFE OF JESUS OF NAZARETH. 195 


Instead of relying on man for aid, every one looked up 
directly to God, and went forth to the work. God was thus 
exalted, the power was confessed to be his own, and, in a 
few years, the standard of the cross was carried to the 
remotest extremities of the then known world. 

Such has, I think, been the case ever since. Every great 
moral reformation has proceeded upon principles analogous to 
these. It was Luther, standing up alone in simple reliance 
upon God, that smote the Papal hierarchy; and the effects 
of that blow are now agitating the nations of Europe. Roger 
Williams, amid persecution and banishment, held forth that 
doctrine of soul-liberty which, in its onward march, is disen- 
thralling a world. Howard, alone, undertook the work of 
showing mercy to the prisoner, and his example is now 
enlisting the choicest minds in Christendom in this labor of 
benevolence. Clarkson, unaided, a young man, and without 
influence, consecrated himself to the work of abolishing the 
slave trade; and, before he rested from his labors, his 
country had repented of and forsaken this atrocious sin. 
Raikes saw the children of Gloucester profaning the Sabbath 
day; he set on foot a Sabbath school on his own account, 
and now millions of children are reaping the benefit of his 
labors, and his example has turned the attention of the whole 
world to the religious instruction of the young. With such 
facts before us, we surely should be encouraged to attempt 
individually the accomplishment of some good design, relying 
in humility and faith upon Him who is able to grant pros- 
perity to the feeblest effort put forth in earnest reliance on 
his almightiness. 

Such were the occupations that filled up a day in the life 
of Jesus of Nazareth. There was not an act done for him- 
self; all was done for others. Every hour was employed in 
the labor which that hour set before him. Private kindness, 
the relief of distress, public teaching, and ministration to the 


196 FRANCIS WAYLAND. 


wants of the famishing, filled up the entire day. Let his disci- 
ples learn to follow his example. Let us, like him, forget 
ourselves, our own wants, and our own weariness, that we may, 
as he did, scatter blessings on every side, as we move 
onward in the pathway of our daily life. If such were the 
occupations of the Son of God, can we do more wisely than 
to imitate his example? Every disciple would then be as a 
city set upon a hill, and men, seeing our good works, would 
glorify our Father who is in heaven. ‘Then would our 
righteousness go forth as brightness, and our salvation as a 
lamp that burneth.” 


ee 


Doe: 
THE METHOD OF GRACE. 


WHITEFIELD. 

[In the spiritual deadness of the eighteenth century, a most impas- 
sioned pioneer of the gospel consecrated his life to declaring its glad 
tidings of salvation throughout England and her American colonies. 
Grorce WHITEFIELD was born December 16th 1714, the son of a Glou- 
cester innkeeper. He entered Pembroke College, Oxford, as a ser- 
vitor, and allied himself with the little band of worshippers called 
“Methodists.” In his twenty-second year, he was ordained deacon. 
Excluded from the churches of Bristol, he undauntedly began preach- 
ing in the open air three years later. Whitefield and Wesley separated 
in 1741, because of doctrinal differences, and the former henceforth 
ministered as a Calvinistic Methodist. Of his vast labors, he briefly 
records that “ from the time of his ordination, to a period embracing 
34 years, he preached upwards of 18,000 sermons, crossed the Atlantic 
seven times, and travelled thousands of miles both in England and 
America.” He died at Newburyport, Massachusetts, September 30th 
1770. Several volumes of his discourses, imperfectly reported, are of 
little value. This thrilling sermon was preached in the High-Church 
Yard of Glasgow on Sunday morning, September 13th 1741, and is 
evidently a verbatim transcript. It, with two others, is printed in the 
*‘ Revivals of the Eighteenth Century,” published by the Free Church 
of Scotland. | 


“ They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, 
saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.’ —Jeremiah vi. 14. 


As God can send anation or people no greater blessing 
than to give them faithful, sincere, and upright ministers, so 
the greatest curse that God can possibly send upon a people 
in this world, is to give them over to blind, unregenerate, 
carnal, lukewarm, and unskilful guides. And yet, in all 
ages, we find that there have been many wolves in sheep’s 
clothing, many that daubed with untempered mortar, that 


prophesied smoother things than God did -allow. As it 
(197) 


198 GEORGE WHITEFIELD. 


was formerly, so it is now; there are many that corrupt 
the Word of God and deal deceitfully with it. It was so in 
a special manner in the prophet Jeremiah’s time; and he, 
faithful to his Lord, faithful to that God who employed him, 
did not fail from time to time to open his mouth against 
them, and to bear a noble testimony to the honor of that 
God in whose name he from time to time spake. If you 
will read his prophecy, you will find that none spake more 
against such ministers than Jeremiah, and here especially in 
the chapter out of which the text is taken, he speaks very 
severely against them—he charges them with several crimes ; 
particularly, he charges them with covetousness: ‘ For,”’ 
says he, in the 13th verse, ‘from the least of them even to 
the greatest of them, every one’is given to covetousness ; 
and from the prophet even unto the priest, every one deal- 
eth falsely.”” And then, in the words of the text, in a more 
special manner, he exemplifies how they had dealt falsely, 
how they had behaved treacherously to poor souls: says he, 
‘“‘'They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my 
people slightly, saying, Peace, peace, when there is no 
peace.” The prophet, in the name of God, had been 
denouncing war against the people, he had been telling them 
that their house should be left desolate, and that the Lord 
would certainly visit the land with war. ‘“‘ Therefore,” says 
he, in the 11th verse, ‘I am full of the fury of the Lord; 
I am weary with holding in; I will ‘pour it out upon the 
children abroad, and upon the assembly of young men to- 
gether; for even the husband with the wife shall be taken, 
the aged with him that is full of days. And their houses 
shall be turned unto others, with their fields and wives to- 
gether; for I will stretch out my hand upon the inhabitants 
of the land, saith the Lord.” The prophet gives a thunder- 
ing message, that they might be terrified and have some con- 
victions and inclinations to repent; but it seems that the 
false prophets, the false priests, went about stifling people’s 


4 


THE METHOD OF GRACE. 199 


convictions, and when they were hurt or a little terrified, 
they were for daubing over the wound, telling them that 
Jeremiah was but an enthusiastic preacher, that there could 
be no such thing as war among them, and saying to people, 
Peace, peace, be still, when the prophet told them there was 
no peace. The words, then, refer primarily unto outward 
things, but I verily believe have also a further reference to 
the soul, and are to be referred to those false teachers, who, 
when people were under conviction of sin, when people were 
beginning to look towards heaven, were for stifling their 
convictions and telling them they were good enough before. 
And, indeed, people generally love to have it so; our hearts 
are exceedingly deceitful, and desperately wicked ; none but 
the eternal God knows how treacherous they are. How 
many of us cry, Peace, peace, to our souls, when there is no 
peace! How many are there who are now settled upon their 
lees, that now think they are Christians, that now flatter 
themselves that they have an interest in Jesus Christ ; 
whereas if we come to examine their experiences, we shall 
find that their peace is but a peace of the devil’s making— 
it is not a peace of God’s giving—it is not a peace that pass- 
eth human understanding. Itis matter, therefore, of great 
importance, my dear hearers, to know whether we may speak 
peace to our hearts. We are all desirous of peace; peace 
is an unspeakable blessing ; how can we live without peace ? 
And, therefore, people from time to time must be taught 
how far they must go, and what must be wrought in them, 
before they can speak peace to their hearts. This is what I 
design at present, that I may deliver my soul, that I may be 
free from the blood of all those to whom I preach—that I 
may not fail to declare the whole counsel of God. I shall, 
from the words of the text, endeavor to show you what you 
must undergo, and what must be wrought in you before you 
can speak peace to your hearts. 

But before I come directly to this, give me leave to pre- 


a 


200 GEORGE WHITEFIELD. 


mise a caution or two. And the first is, that I take it for 
granted you believe religion to be an inward thing; you be- 
lieve it to be a work in the heart, a work wrought in the soul 
by the power of the Spirit of God. If you do not believe 
this, you do not believe your Bibles. If you do not believe’ 
this, though you have got your Bibles in your hand, you 
hate the Lord Jesus Christ in your heart; for religion is 
everywhere represented in Scripture as the work of God in the 
heart. ‘ The kingdom of God is within us,” says our Lord; 
and, ‘‘ He is not a Christian who is one outwardly ; but he is a 
Christian who is one inwardly.”’ If any of you place religion 
in outward things, I shall not perhaps please you this morn- 
ing; you will understand me no more when I speak of the 
work of God upon a poor sinner’s heart than if I were talking 
in an unknown tongue. I would further premise a caution, 
that I would by no means confine God to one way of acting. 
I would by no means say, that all persons, before they come 
to have a settled peace in their hearts, are obliged to undergo 
the same degrees of conviction. No; God has various ways 
of bringing his children home; his sacred Spirit bloweth 
when, and where, and how it listeth. But, however, I will 
venture to affirm this: that before ever you can speak peace 
to your heart, whether by shorter or longer continuance of 
your convictions, whether in a more pungent or in a more 
gentle way, you must undergo what I shall hereafter lay down 
in the following discourse. 

First, then, before you can speak peace to your hearts, 
you must be made to see, made to feel, made to weep over, 
made to bewail, your actual transgressions against the law 
of God. According to the covenant of works, ‘The soul 
that sinneth it shall die ;’’ cursed is that man, be he what he 
may, be he who he may, that continueth not in all things that 
are written in the book of the law to do them. We are not 
only to do some things, but we are to do all things, and we 
are to continue so to do; so that the least deviation from 


THE METHOD OF GRACE. 201 


the moral law, according to the covenant of works, whether 
in thought, word, or deed, deserves eternal death at the 
hand of God. And if one evil thought, if one evil word, if 
one evil action, deserves eternal damnation, how many hells, 
my friends, do every one of us deserve, whose whole lives 
have been one continued rebellion against God! Before 
ever, therefore, you can speak peace to your hearts, you 
must be brought to see, brought to believe, what a dreadful 
thing it is to depart from the living God. And now, my 
dear friends, examine your hearts, for I hope you came 
hither with a design to have your souls made better. Give 
me leave to ask you, in the presence of God, whether you 
know the time, and if you do not know exactly the time, 
do you know there was a time, when God wrote bitter things 
against you, when the arrows of the Almighty were within 
you! Was ever the remembrance of your sins grievous to 
you! Was the burden of your sins intolerable to your 
thoughts? Did you ever see that God’s wrath might justly 
fall upon you, on account of your actual transgressions 
against God? Were you ever in all your life sorry for your 
sins? Could you ever say, My sins are gone over my head 
as a burden too heavy for me to bear? Did you ever expe- 
rience any such thing as this? Did ever any such thing as 
this pass between God and your soul? If not, for Jesus 
Christ’s sake, do not call yourselves Christians; you may 
speak peace to your hearts, but there is no peace. May the 
Lord awaken you, may the Lord convert you, may the Lord 
give you peace, if it be his will, before you go home! 

But further: you may be convinced of your actual sins, 
so as to be made to tremble, and yet you may be strangers 
to Jesus Christ, you may have no true work of grace upon 
your hearts. Before ever, therefore, you can speak peace 
to your hearts, conviction must go deeper; you must not 
only be convinced of your actual transgressions against the 
law of God, but likewise of the foundation of all your 


202 GEORGE WHITEFIELD. 


transgressions. And what is that? I mean original sin, 
that original corruption each of us brings into the world 
with us, which renders us liable to God’s wrath and damna- 
tion. There are many poor souls that think themselves fine 
reasoners, yet they pretend to say there is no such thing as 
original sin; they will charge God with injustice in imput- 
ing Adam’s sin to us; although we have got the mark of 
the beast and of the devil upon us, yet they tell us we are 
not born in sin. Let them look abroad into the world and 
see the disorders in it, and think, if they can, if this is the 
paradise in which God did put man. No! everything in the 
world is out of order. Ihave often thought, when I was 
abroad, that if there were no other argument to prove ori- 
ginal sin, the rising of wolves and tigers against man, nay, 
the barking of a dog against us, is a proof of original sin. 
‘Tigers and lions durst not rise against us, if it were not for 
Adam’s first sin: for when the creatures rise up against us, 
it is as much as to say, You have sinned against God, and 
we take up our Master’s quarrel. If we look inwardly, we 
shall see enough of lusts and man’s temper contrary to the 
temper of God. There is pride, malice, and revenge, in all 
our hearts; and this temper cannot come from God; it 
comes from our first parent, Adam, who, after he fell from 
God, fell out of God into the devil. However, therefore, 
some people may deny this, yet when conviction comes, all 
carnal reasonings are battered down immediately, and the 
poor soul begins to feel and see the fountain from which all 
the polluted streams do flow. When the sinner is first 
awakened, he begins to wonder—How came I to be so 
wicked? The Spirit of God then strikes in, and shows that 
he has no good thing in him by nature; then he sees that he 
is altogether gone out of the way, that he is altogether be- 
come abominable, and the poor creature is made to lie down 
at the foot of the throne of God, and to acknowledge that 
God would be just to damn him, just to cut him off, though 


THE METHOD OF GRACE. 203 


he never had committed one actual sin in his life. Did you 
ever feel and experience this, any of you—to justify God 
in your damnation—to own that you are by nature children | 
of wrath, and that God may justly cut you off, though you 
never actually had offended him in all your life? If you 
were ever truly convicted, if your hearts were ever truly 
cut, if self were truly taken out of you, you would be made 
to see and feel this. And if you have never felt the weight 
of original sin,-do not call yourselves Christians. I am 
verily persuaded original sin is the greatest burden of a true 
convert; this ever grieves the regenerate soul, the sanctified 
soul. The indwelling of sin in the heart is the burden of a 
converted person; it is the burden of a true Christian. He 
continually cries out, “‘O! who will deliver me from this 
body of death, this indwelling corruption in my heart?” 
This is that which disturbs a poor soul most. And, there- 
fore, if you never felt this inward corruption, if you never 
saw that God might justly curse you for it, indeed, my dear 
friends, you may speak peace to your hearts, but I fear, 
nay, I know, there is no true peace. 

Further: before you can speak peace to your hearts, you 
must not only be troubled for the sins of your life, the sins 
of your nature, but likewise for the sins of your best duties 
and performances. When a poor soul is somewhat awakened 
by the terrors of the Lord, then the poor creature, being 
born under the covenant of works, flies directly to a cove- 
nant of works again. Andas Adam and Eve hid themselves 
among the trees of the garden, and sewed fig leaves together 
to cover their nakedness, so the poor sinner, when awakened, 
flies to his duties and to his performances, to hide himself 
from God, and goes to patch up a righteousness of his own. 
Says he, I will be mighty good now—I will reform—I will 
do all I can; and then certainly Jesus Christ will have 
mercy on me. But before you can speak peace to your 
heart, you must be brought to see that God may damn you 


204 GEORGE WHITEFIELD. 


for the best prayer you ever put up; you must be brought 
to see that all your duties—all your righteousness—as the 
prophet elegantly expresses it—put them all together, are 
so far from recommending you to God, are so far from being 
any motive and inducement to God to have mercy on your 
poor soul, that he will see them to be filthy rags, a menstru- 
ous cloth—that God hates them, and cannot away with them, 
if you bring them to him in order to recommend you to his 
favor. My dear friends, what,is there in our performances 
to recommend us unto God? Our persons are in an unjus- 
tified state by nature, we deserve to be damned ten thousand 
times over; and what must our performances be? We can 
do no good thing by nature: “‘ They that are in the flesh 
cannot please God.”” You may do things materially good, 
but you cannot do a thing formally and rightly good; be- 
cause nature cannot act above itself. It is impossible that a 
man who is unconverted can act for the glory of God; he 
cannot do anything in faith, and “ whatsoever is not of faith 
is sin.’ After we are renewed, yet we are renewed but in 
part, indwelling sin continues in us, there is a mixture of 
corruption in every one of our duties; so that after we are 
converted, were Jesus Christ only to accept us according to 
our works, our works would damn us, for we cannot put up 
a prayer but it is far from. that perfection which the moral 
law requireth. Ido not know what you may think, but I 
can say that I cannot pray but I sn—I cannot preach to 
you or any others but I sin—I can do nothing without sin; 
and, as one expresseth it, my repentance wants to be repented 
of, and my tears to be washed in the precious blood of my 
dear Redeemer. Our best duties are as so many splendid 
sins. Before you can speak peace to your heart, you must 
not only be sick of your original and actual sin, but you 
- must be made sick of your righteousness, of all your duties 
and performances. There must be a deep conviction before 
you can be brought out of your self-righteousness; it is the 


? 


ii i eo 


THE METHOD OF GRACE. 205 


last idol taken out of our heart. The pride of our heart 
will not let us submit to the righteousness of Jesus Christ. 
But if you never felt that you had no righteousness of your 
own, if you never felt the deficiency of your own righteous- 
ness, you cannot come to Jesus Christ. There are a great 
many now who may say, Well, we believe all this; but there 
is a great difference betwixt talking and feeling. Did you 
ever feel the want of a dear Redeemer? Did you ever feel 
the want of Jesus Christ, upon the account of the deficiency 
of your own righteousness? And can you now say from 
your heart, Lord, thou mayst justly damn me for the best 
duties that ever I did perform? If you are not thus brought 
out of self, you may speak peace to yourselves, but yet there 
is no peace. 

But then, before you can speak peace to your souls, there 
is one particular sin you must be greatly troubled for, and. 
yet I fear there are few of you think what it is; it is the 
reigning, the damning sin of the Christian world, and yet 
the Christian world seldom or never think of it. And pray 
what is that? It is what most of you think you are not 
guilty of—and that is, the sin of unbelief. Before you can 
speak peace to your heart, you must be troubled for the un- 
belief of your heart. But, can it be supposed that any of 
you are unbelievers here in this church-yard, that are born 
in Scotland, in a reformed country, that go to church every 
Sabbath? Can any of you that receive the sacrament once 
a year—O that it were administered oftener!—can it be 
supposed that you who had tokens for the sacrament, that 
you who keep up family prayer, that any of you do not be- 
lieve in the Lord Jesus Christ? I appeal to your own 
hearts, if you would not think me uncharitable, if I doubted 
whether any of you believed in Christ; and yet, I fear upon 
examination, we should find that most of you have not 
so much faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as the devil himself. 
- I am persuaded the devil believes more of the Bible than 


206 GEORGE WHITEFIELD. 


most of us do. He believes the divinity of Jesus Christ ; 
that is more than many who call themselves Christians do ; 
nay, he believes and trembles, and that is more than thou- 
sands amongst us do. My friends, we mistake a historical 
faith for a true faith, wrought in the heart by the Spirit of 
God. You fancy you believe, because you believe there is 
such a book as we call the Bible—because you go to church ; 
all this you may do, and have no true faith in Christ. 
Merely to believe there was such a person as Christ, merely 
to believe there is a book called the Bible, will do you no 
good, more than to believe there was such a man as Cesar 
or Alexander the Great. The Bible is a sacred depository. 
What thanks have we to give to God for these lively oracles ! 
But yet we may have these, and not believe in the Lord 
Jesus Christ. My dear friends, there must be a principle 
‘wrought in the heart by the Spirit of the living God. Did 
I ask you how long it is since you believed in Jesus Christ, 
I suppose most of you would tell me, you believed in Jesus 
Christ as Jong as ever you remember—you never did misbe- 
lieve. Then, you could not give me a better proof that you 
never yet believed in Jesus Christ, unless you were sancti- 
fied early, as from the womb; for, they that otherwise be- 
lieve in Christ know there was a time when they did not 
believe in Jesus Christ. You say you love God with all 
your heart, soul, and strength. If I were to ask you how long 
it is since you loved God, you would say, As long as you can 
remember; you never hated God, you know no time when 
there was-enmity in your heart against God. Then, unless 
you were sanctified very early, you never loved God in your 
life. My dear friends, I am more particular in this, because 
it is a most deceitful delusion, whereby so many people are 
carried away, that they believe already. Therefore, it is 
remarked of Mr. Marshall, giving account of his experi- 
ences, that he had been working for life, and he had ranged all — 
his sins under the ten commandments, and then coming to a * 


THE METHOD OF GRACE. 207 


minister, asked him the reason why he could not get peace. 
The minister looked to his catalogue, Away, says he, I do 
not find one word of the sin of unbelief in all your cata~ 
logue. It is the peculiar work of the Spirit of God to con- 
vince us of our unbelief—that we have got no faith. Says 
Jesus Christ, ‘‘I will send the Comforter ; and when he is 
come, he will reprove the world” of the sin of unbelief; 
‘of sin,’ says Christ, “‘ because they believe not on me.” 
Now, my dear friends, did God ever show you that you had 
no faith? Were you ever made to bewail a hard heart of 
unbelief? Was it ever the language of your heart, Lord, 
give me faith; Lord, enable me to lay hold on thee; Lord, 
enable me to call thee my Lord and my God? Did Jesus 
Christ ever convince you in this manner? Did he ever con- 
vince you of your inability to close with Christ, and make 
you to cry out to God to give you faith? If not, do not 
speak peace to your heart. May the Lord awaken you, and 
give you true, solid peace before you go hence and be no 
more | | 

Once more, then: before you can speak peace to your 
heart, you must not only be convinced of your actual and 
original sin, the sins of your own righteousness, the sin of 
unbelief, but you must be enabled to lay hold upon the per- 
fect righteousness, the all-sufficient righteousness, of the 
Lord Jesus Christ; you must lay hold by faith on the right- 
eousness of Jesus Christ, and then you shall have peace. 
‘Come,’ says Jesus, ‘unto me, all ye that are weary and 
heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’”’ This speaks en- 
couragement to all that are weary and heavy laden; but the 
promise of rest is made to them only upon their coming and 
believing, and taking him to be their God and their all. 
Before we can ever have peace with God, we must be justi- 
fied by faith through our Lord Jesus Christ, we must bé 
enabled to apply Christ to our hearts, we must have Christ 
brought home to our souls, so as his righteousness may be 


208 GEORGE WHITEFIELD. 


made our righteousness, so as his merits may be imputed to 
our souls. My dear friends, were you ever married to Jesus 
Christ ? Did Jesus Christ ever give himself to you? Did 
you ever close with Christ by a lively faith, so as to feel 
Christ in your hearts, so as to hear him speaking peace to 
your souls? Did peace ever flow in upon your hearts like a 
river? Did you ever feel that peace that Christ spoke to 
his disciples? I pray God he may come and speak peace to 
you. ‘These things you must experience. I am now talking 
of the invisible realities of another world, of inward reli- 
.gion, of the work of God upon a poor sinner’s heart. Jam 
now talking of a matter of great importance, my dear hear- 
ers; you are all concerned in it, your souls are concerned 
in it, your eternal salvation is concerned in it. You may be 
all at peace, but perhaps the devil has lulled you asleep into 
a carnal lethargy and security, and will endeavor to keep 
you there, till he get you to hell, and there you will be 
awakened; but it will be dreadful to be awakened and 
find yourselves so fearfully mistaken, when the great gulf is 
fixed, when you will be calling to all eternity for a drop of 
water to cool your tongue, and shall not obtain it. 

Give me leave, then, to address myself to several sorts of 
persons; and O may God, of his infinite mercy, bless the 
application! There are some of you perhaps can say, 
Through grace we can go along with you. Blessed be God, 
we have been convinced of our actual sins, we have been 
convinced of original sin, we have been convinced of self- 
righteousness, we have felt the bitterness of unbelief, and 
through grace we have closed with Jesus Christ; we can 
speak peace to our hearts, because God hath spoken peace 
to us. Can you say so? Then I will salute you, as the 
angels did the women the first day of the week, All hail! 
fear not ye, my dear brethren, you are happy souls; you 
may lie down and be at peace indeed, for God hath given 
you peace; you may be content under all the dispensations 


THE METHOD OF GRACE. | 209 


of providence, for nothing can happen to you now, but what 
shall be the effect of God’s love to your soul; you need 
not fear what fightings may be without, seeing there is 
peace within. Have you closed with Christ? Is God your 
friend? Is Christ your friend? Then look up with com- 
fort; all is yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s. 
Everything shall work together for your good; the very 
hairs of your head are numbered; he that toucheth you, 
toucheth the apple of God’s eye. But then, my dear friends, 
beware of resting on your first conversion. You that are 
young believers in Christ, you should be looking out for 
fresh discoveries of the Lord Jesus Christ every moment; 
you must not build upon your past experiences, you must 
not build upon a work within you, but always come out of 
yourselves to the righteousness of Jesus Christ without you ; 
you must be always coming as poor sinners to draw water 
out of the wells of salvation; you must be forgetting the 
things that are behind, and be continually pressing forward 
to the things that are before. My dear friends, you must 
keep up a tender, close walk with the Lord Jesus Christ. 
There are many of us who lose our peace by our untender 
walk ; something or other gets in betwixt Christ and us, and 
we fall into darkness; something or other steals our hearts 
from God, and this grieves the Holy Ghost, and the Holy 
Ghost leaves us to ourselves. Let me, therefore, exhort you 
that have got peace with God, to take care that you do not 
lose this peace. It is true, if you are once in Christ, you 
cannot finally fall from God: ‘There is no condemnation 
to them that are in Christ Jesus ;” but if you cannot fall 
finally, you may fall foully, and may go with broken bones 
all your days. ‘Take care of backslidings ; for Jesus Christ’s- 
sake, do not grieve the Holy Ghost—you may never recover 
your comfort while you live. O take care of going a gad- 
ding and wandering from God, after you have closed with 
Jesus Christ. My dear friends, I have paid dear for back- 


O 


210 GEORGE WHITEFIELD. 


sliding. Our hearts are so cursedly wicked, that if you 
take not care, if you do not keep up a constant watch, your 
wicked hearts will deceive you, and draw you aside. It will 
be sad to be under the scourge of a correcting Father ; wit- 
ness the visitations of Job, David, and other saints in Scrip- 
ture. Let me, therefore, exhort you that have got peace to 
keep a close walk with Christ. Iam grieved with the loose 
walk of those that are Christians, that have had discoveries 
of Jesus Christ; theré is so little difference betwixt them 
and other people, that I scarce know which is the true 
Christian. Christians are afraid to speak for God—they 
run down with the stream; if they come into worldly com- 
pany, they will talk of the world as if they were in their 
element ; this you would not do when you had the first dis- 
coveries of Christ’s love; you could talk then of Christ’s 
love for ever, when the candle of the Lord shined upon your 
soul. ‘That time has been when you had something to say 
for your dear Lord; but now you can go into company and 
hear others speaking about the world bold enough, and you 
are afraid of being laughed at if you speak for Jesus Christ. 
A great many people have grown conformists now in the 
worst sense of the word; they will cry out against the cere- 
monies of the church, as they may justly do; but then you 
are mighty fond of ceremonies in your behavior; you will 
conform to the world, which is a great deal worse. Many 
will stay till the devil bring up new fashions. ‘Take care, 
then, not to be conformed to the world. What have Chris- 
tians to do with the world? Christians should be singularly 
good, bold for their Lord, that all who are with you may 
take notice that you have been with Jesus. I would exhort 
you to come to a settlement in Jesus Christ, so as to have a 
continual abiding of God in your heart. We go a-building 
on our faith of adherence, and lose our comfort; but we 
should be growing up to a faith of assurance, to know that 
we are God’s, and so walk in the comfort of the Holy Ghost 


THE METHOD OF GRACE. 211 


and be edified. Jesus Christ is now much wounded in the 
house of his friends. Excuse me in being particular; for, 
my friends, it grieves me more that Jesus Christ should be 
wounded by his friends than by his enemies. We cannot 
expect anything else from Deists; but for such as have felt 
his power to fall away, for them not to walk agreeably to 
the vocation wherewith they are called—by these means we 
bring our Lord’s religion into contempt, to be a by-word 
among the heathen. For Christ’s sake, if you know Christ 
keep close by him; if God have spoken peace, O keep that 
peace by looking up to Jesus Christ every moment. Such 
as have got peace with God, if you are undér trials, fear 
not, all things shall work for your good; if you are under 
temptations, fear not. If he has spoken peace to your hearts, 
all these things shall be for your good. 

But what shall I say to you that have got no peace with 
God ?—and these are, perhaps, the most of this congrega- 
tion; it makes me weep to think of it. Most of you, if you 
examine your hearts, must confess that God never yet spoke 
peace to you; you are children of the devil, if Christ is not 
in you, if God has not spoken peace to your heart. Poor soul ! 
what a cursed condition are you in! I would not be in your 
case for ten thousand, thousand worlds. Why? You are just 
hanging over hell. What peace can you have when God is 
_ your enemy, when the wrath of God is abiding upon your poor 
soul? Awake, then, you that are sleeping in a false peace; 
awake, ye carnal professors, ye hypocrites that go to church, 
receive the sacrament, read your Bibles, and never felt the 
power of God upon your hearts; you that are formal pro- 
fessors, you that are baptized heathens; awake, awake, and 
do not rest on a false bottom. Blame me not for addressing 
myself to you; indeed, it is out of love to your souls. I 
see you are lingering in your Sodom, and wanting to stay 
there; but I come to you as the angel did to Lot, to take 
you by the hand. Come away, my dear brethren—fly, fly, 


212 GEORGE WHITEFIELD. 


fly for your lives to Jesus Christ, fly to a bleeding God, fly 
to a throne of grace; and beg of God to break your hearts, 
beg of God to convince you of your actual sins, beg of God 
to convince you of your original sin, beg of God to convince 
you of your self-righteousness—beg of God to give you 
faith, and to enable you to close with Jesus Christ. O you 
that are secure, I must be a son of thunder to you, and O 
that God may awaken you, though it be with thunder: it is 
out of love, indeed, that I speak to you. I know by sad 
experience what it is to be lulled asleep with a false peace ; 
long was I lulled asleep, long did I think myself a Chris- 
tian, when I knew nothing of the Lord Jesus Christ. I 
went perhaps farther than-many of you do; I used to fast 
twice a week, I used to pray sometimes nine times a day, I 
used to receive the sacrament constantly every Lord’s-day ; 
and yet I knew nothing of Jesus Christ in my heart, I knew 
not that I must be a new creature—I knew nothing of in- 
ward religion in my soul. And perhaps, many of you may 
be deceived as I, poor creature, was; and, therefore, it is 
out of love to you indeed, that I speak to you. O if you 
do not take care, a form of religion will destroy your soul; 
you will rest in it, and will not come to Jesus Christ at all; 
whereas, these things are only the means, and not the end 
of religion; Christ is the end of the law for righteousness 
to all that believe. O, then, awake, you that are settled on 
your lees; awake you Church professors; awake you that 
have got a name to live, that are rich and think you want 
nothing, not considering that you are poor, and blind, and 
naked; I counsel you to come and buy of Jesus Christ gold, 
white raiment, and eye-salve. But I hope there are some 
that are a little wounded; I hope God does not intend to 
let me preach in vain; I hope God will reach some of your 
precious souls, and awaken some of you out of your carnal 
security ; I hope there are some who are willing to come to 
Christ, and beginning to think that they have been building 


‘ 





THE METHOD OF GRACE. 213 


upon a false foundation. Perhaps the devil may strike in, 
and bid you despair of mercy; but fear not, what I have 
been speaking to you is only out of love to you—is only 
to awaken you, and let you see your danger. If any of 
you are willing to be reconciled to God, God the Father, 
Son, and Holy Ghost, is willing to be reconciled to you. O 
then, though you have no peace as yet, come away to Jesus 
Christ; he is our peace, he is our peace-maker—he has 
made peace betwixt God and offending man. Would you 
have peace with God? Away, then, to God through Jesus 
Christ, who has purchased peace; the Lord Jesus has shed 
his heart’s blood for this. He died for this; he rose again 
for this; he ascended into the highest heaven, and is now 
interceding at the right hand of God. Perhaps you think 
there will be no peace for you. Why so? Because you are 
sinners? because you have crucified Christ—you have put 
him to open shame—you have trampled under foot the blood 
of the Son of God? What of all this? Yet there is peace 
for you. Pray, what did Jesus Christ say to his disciples, 
when he came to them the first day of the week? The first 
word he said was, ‘‘ Peace be unto you;’’ he showed them his 
hands and his side, and said, ‘‘ Peace be unto you.” It is as 
much as if he had said, Fear not, my disciples ; see my hands 
and my feet how they have been pierced for your sake; there- 
fore, fear not. How did Christ speak to his disciples? ‘‘ Go 
tell my brethren, and tell broken-hearted Peter in particular, 
that Christ is risen, that he is ascended unto his Father and 
your Father, to his God and your God.” And after Christ 
rose from the dead, he came preaching peace, with an olive 
branch of peace, like Noah’s dove: ‘My peace I leave with 
you.” Who were they? ‘They were enemies of Christ as 
well as we, they were deniers of Christ once as well as we. 
Perhaps some of you have backslidden and lost your peace, 
and you think you deserve no peace; and no more you do. 
But, then, God will heal your backslidings, he will love you 


214 GEORGE WHITEFIELD. 


freely. As for you that are wounded, if you are made wil- 
ling to come to Christ, come away. Perhaps some of you 
want to dress yourselves in your duties, that are but rotten 
rags. No, you had better come naked as you are, for you 
must throw aside your rags, and come in your blood. Some 
of you may say, We would come, but we have got a hard 
heart. But you will never get it made soft till ye come to 
Christ ; he will take away the heart of stone, and give you 
an heart of flesh; he will speak peace to your souls ; though 
ye have betrayed him, yet he will be your peace. Shall I 
prevail upon any of you this morning to come to Jesus 
Christ? There is a great multitude of souls here; how 
shortly must you all die, and go to judgment! Even be- 
fore night, or to-morrow’s night, some of you may be laid 
out for this kirk-yard. And how will you do if you be not 
at peace with God—if the Lord Jesus Christ has not spoken 
peace to your heart? If God speak not peace to you here, 
you will be damned for ever. I must not flatter you, my 
dear friends, I will deal sincerely with your souls. Some 
of you may think I carry things too far. But, indeed, 
when you come to judgment, you will find what I say is 
true, either to your eternal damnation or comfort. May 
God influence your hearts to come to him! I am not wil- 
ling to go away without persuading you. I cannot be per- 
suaded but God may make use of me as ameans of persuad- 
ing some of you to come to the Lord Jesus Christ. O did 
you but feel the peace which they have that love the Lord 
Jesus Christ! ‘‘ Great peace have they,” says the psalmist, 
‘that love thy law; nothing shall offend them.”” But there 
is no peace to the wicked. I know what it is to live a life - 
of sin; I was obliged to sin in order to stifle conviction. 
And I am sure this is the way many of you take; if you 
get into company, you drive off conviction. But you had 
better go to the bottom at once; it must be done—your 
wound must be searched, or you must be damned. If it 


THE METHOD OF GRACE. 215 


were a matter of indifference, I would not speak one word 
about it. But you will be damned without Christ. He is 
the way, he is the truth, and the life. I cannot think you 
should go to hell without Christ. How can you dwell with 
everlasting burnings? How can you abide the thought of 
living with the devil for ever? Is it not better to have some 
soul-trouble here, than to be sent to hell by Jesus Christ 
hereafter? What is hell, but to be absent from Christ? 
If there were no other hell, that would be hell enough. It 
will be hell to be tormented with the devil for ever. Get 
acquaintance with God, then, and be at peace. I beseech 
you, as a poor worthless ambassador of Jesus Christ, that 
you would be reconciled to God. My business this morning, 
the first day of the week, is to tell you that Christ is willing 
to be reconciled to you. Will any of you be reconciled to 
Jesus Christ? Then he will forgive you all your sins, he 
will blot out all your transgressions. But if you will go on 
and rebel against Christ, and stab him daily—if you will go 
on and abuse Jesus Christ, the wrath of God you must ex- 
pect will fall upon you. God will not be mocked; that 
which a man soweth, that shall he also reap. And if you 
will not be at peace with God, God will not be at peace with 
you. Who can stand before God when he is angry? It is 
a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of an angry God. 
When the people came to apprehend Christ, they fell to the 
ground when Jesus said, ‘I am he.’’ And if they could 
not bear the sight of Christ when clothed with the rags of 
mortality, how will they bear the sight of him when he is on 
his father’s throne? Methinks I see the poor wretches 
dragged out of their graves by the devil; methinks I see 
them trembling, crying out to the hills and rocks to cover 
them. But the devil will say, Come, I will take you away ; 
and then they shall stand trembling before the judgment- 
seat of Christ. They shall appear before him to see him 
once, and hear him pronounce that irrevocable sentence, 


216 GEORGE WHAITEFIELD. 


‘Depart from me, ye cursed.” Methinks I hear the poor 
creatures saying, Lord, if we must be damned, let some 
angel pronounce the sentence. No, the God of love, Jesus 
Christ, will pronounce it. Will ye not believe this? Do 
not think I am talking at random, but ‘agreeably to the 
Scriptures of truth. If you do not, then show yourselves 
men, and this morning go away with full resolution, in the 
strength of God, to cleave to Christ. And may you have 
no rest in your souls till you rest in Jesus Christ! I could 
still go on, for it is sweet to talk of Christ. Do you not 
long for the time when you shall have new bodies—when 
they shall be immortal, and made like Christ’s glorious. 
body ? and then they will talk of Jesus Christ for evermore. 
But it is time, perhaps, for you to go and prepare for your 
respective worship, and I would not hinder any of you. My 
design is, to bring poor sinners to Jesus Christ. O that 
God may bring some of you to himself! May the Lord 
Jesus now dismiss you with his blessing, and may the dear 
Redeemer convince you that are unawakened, and turn the 
wicked from the evil of their way! And may the love of 
God, that passeth all understanding, fill your hearts! Grant 
this, O Father, for Christ’s sake; to whom, with thee and 
the blessed Spirit, be all honor and glory, now and for ever- 
more. Amen. 


Al My 
KEEPING ALIVE THE LOVE OF GOD. 


ALEXANDER. 

[Arcuipatp ALExanpeER, D.D. (a name of strength in the Presby- 
terian Church), was born in Rockbridge county, Virginia, in 1772, 
and died in 1851. He was educated at Hampden-Sydney College, and 
licensed to preach at the ageof nineteen. Five years later he was 
_ appointed president of that institution, and in 1807 became Pastor of 
the Pine Street Church, Philadelphia. Dr. Alexander spent the last 
forty years of his life in organizing and strengthening Princeton 
Theological Seminary. As a preacher and writer, his style was 
simple, direct, and attractive. His ‘‘ Evidences of Revealed Religion,” 
“Bible Dictionary,” ‘‘ Advice to the Young Christian,”’ and ‘Counsel 
from the Aged to the Young,” are popular works. Three of his five 
sons were ministers, and two of these distinguished professors. Our 
extract is made, by permission, from his “ Practical Sermons,” issued 
by the Presbyterian Board of Publication. ] 


“* Keep yourselves in the love of God.”’—Jude 21. 


THE phrase “love of God,” has two significations in the 
New Testament. First, it imports God’s love to us: 
secondly, our love to God. | 

In the former sense, it is read in the following passages. 
Rom. v. 5, ‘‘ For the love of God is shed abroad in your 
hearts, by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven.” Rom. 
viii. 389, ‘“‘Nor any creature shall be able to separate us 
from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus.” Tit. iu. 
5, ‘“* But after that the kindness and love of God to man 
~appeared.” 1 John iii. 16, ‘“‘ Hereby perceive we the love 
of God, because he laid down his life for us.” 1 John iv. 
9, “In this was manifested the love of God toward us,” Xe. 

_ It is used in the latter sense in Luke xi. 42, ‘“‘ But pass 
by judgment and the love of God.” John v. 42, “I know 


you, that ye have not the love of God in you.” 2 Thess. 
(217) 


218 ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER. 


ili. 5, “‘ The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God.” 
1 John ii. 5, ‘In him, verily the love of God is perfected.” 
ii. 17, ‘But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his 
brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion 
from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?”  y. 8, 
“For this is the love of God, that we keep his command- 
ments.’ ‘To which may be added the words of our text, 
“‘ Keep yourselves in the love of God.” 

Such exhortations do not imply, as some teach, that those 
addressed possess in themselves a complete ability to per- 
form what is commanded, without divine aid. The maxim 
that where there is a command, there is always an ability to 
obey, is a false maxim. The obligation to obedience may 
remain, when the ability is lost; as is the case with every 
sinner. ‘The maxim holds good in relation to all creatures, 
as they proceed from the hands of God. But who would 
say that the devil is not under obligation to love his Creator ; 
and yet, who would affirm that he has the ability to change 
his nature from enmity to love? Human agency and divine 
efficiency are not at war; but sweetly harmonize. God 
commands what is right, and graciously gives us strength 
to perform it. It is analogous to what we observe in 
natural things. It is the duty of the husbandman to plough 
and sow, and water, but without the genial influences of 
heaven, the sun, air, and rain, he cannot have a crop. God 
must ‘‘ give the increase.”’ The true principle is taught by 
Paul, Phil. ii. 12, 18. ‘* Work out your own salvation with 
fear and trembling, for it is God that worketh in you both 
to will and to do, of his own good pleasure.’’ Our depend- 
ence on God is no reason why we should sit still and be idle, 
but a good reason for our being up and doing. It will be 
admitted by all, that the love of God is the essence of true 
religion, under every dispensation. It was the law of 
Paradise. It was the sum and substance of the ten com- 
mandments, uttered in a voice of thunder from Sinai, and 


KEEPING ALIVE THE LOVE OF GOD. 219 


written by the finger of God on tables of stone; and it is 
the soul of gospel obedience. It is unnecessary to attempt 
any analysis of love. It is too simple for definition, and too 
well known to all men, to need any explanation of its 
nature. But as the word includes more than one affection, 
it may be useful to employ a few words in showing what is 
usually comprehended under the term. When it is put for 
all moral obedience, it is used as a generic term, and com- 
prehends all the desires and affections of the heart, which 
have God for their object, such as admiration, reverence, 
and confidence. But in its stricter sense, as meaning what 
is commonly understood by love, it comprehends three 
affections, which are easily distinguishable. The first ter- 
minates on the moral excellence of the divine character, 
and is termed esteem or complacency. The second has for 
its object the glory and felicity of God, and ardently seeks 
the manifestation of his glory, and rejoices in his infinite 
and unchangeable blessedness. The third is that flow of 
affection which is excited in the susceptible heart, by the 
reception of benefits, and is called gratitude. We may 
exercise benevolence toward one for whom we can feel no 
esteem; and we may feel esteem and benevolence toward 
one to whom we owe no debt of gratitude. But in regard 
to God, all these unite and combine, in that state of heart, 
in which true holiness or piety consists. We love God for 
what he is. We rejoice in his glory and felicity, and we 
feel gratitude for his unnumbered and unspeakable benefits. 
This is the love of God. The loss of this was the greatest 
injury sustained by the fall. The recovery of a disposition 
to love God supremely, is the richest blessing brought to 
us by the gospel. This is the end of redemption. By 
regeneration love is implanted again in the human soul, 
which has a natural capacity for this affection; so that when 
implanted, it takes deep root. But in the beginning, this 
affection is commonly feeble: in all, it is imperfect. The 


220 ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER. 


spiritual birth is analogous to the natural. All partake of 
life by this birth, but not all in an equal degree. Some 
are strong and lively from the moment of their conversion, 
while others are weak and sickly, and at first give symptoms 
of vitality so equivocal, that for some time, it may remain 
doubtful whether they are dead or alive. But these feeble 
babes, by means of the sincere milk of the word, may out- 
grow, and come nearer to the stature of a perfect man in 
Christ Jesus, than those who commenced their spiritual 
existence under auspices much move favorable. In all, 
there is room for growth in grace, that is, in love, while 
they are tenants of these houses of clay. The exhortation 
in the text implies that Christians are liable to lose the 
fervor of their first love. They are, indeed, prone to 
declension. ‘The course of the Christian is like that of a 
man rowing up the stream; if he is remiss for one moment, 
he loses some part of the distance before gained. All the 
tendencies of nature within him are downward; and all the 
influence from the world is in the same direction. There is 
need, therefore, of constant exertion. We must not be 
slothful, nor grow weary in well-doing. 

In the sequel, some directions for keeping ourselves in the 
love of God will be given; and some motives presented, to 
stimulate my hearers to engage heartily in this work. 

DIRECTIONS FOR KEEPING THE HEART IN THE LOVE OF 
Gop. | ae 

1. Carefully shun all those circumstances and things 
which are known to have a tendency to damp the fervors 
of love, or to extinguish this holy fire. Here a large field 
opens, but we have not time to occupy it. A few things 
only, out of many, can be noticed. Above all, avoid every 
sinful indulgence. Known, allowed sins, of every kind, 
are as water to the fire. The love of God cannot live in 
the heart, where any sin is indulged. Fleshly lusts war 
against this holy principle. Flee youthful lusts. The love 


i 


REEPINGOALIVE THE LOVE OF GOD. 221 


fl 


of the world is a common and insidious foe. Avarice may 
be indulged to a great extent, and yet no overt act com- 
mitted which will alarm the conscience. We should remem- 
ber that solemn warning, ‘If any man love the world, the 
love of the Father is not in him.” ‘Love not the world 
nor the things that are in the world.” Desire of the good 
opinion of men, often leads even Christians to an undue 
conformity to the world. ‘ How can ye believe,” says our 
Lord, ‘‘ who receive honor one from another ?”’ 

The neglect, or careless performance, of the duties of the 
closet, cannot but have the effect of cooling the ardor of 
piety in the soul; especially the neglect of reading the 
word of God, which is calculated to furnish fuel to the fire 
of divine love. 

Avoid, also, contention and strife, as exceedingly inimical 
_ to the peaceful spirit of piety. ‘‘ As much as lieth in you, 
live peaceably with all men.” 

Every species of pride and vain glory, tends to extinguish 
the holy fervors of divine love. 

In short, whatever thought, feeling, desire, imagination, 
word, or action has a tendency to grieve the Holy Spirit, 
should be solicitously avoided. 

2. To keep ourselves in the love of God, we should often 
meditate on the superlative moral excellence of the divine 
character, as displayed in his works and word. ‘The habit 
of associating the idea of God with every object of nature, 
is one of the happiest which can be formed. It brings God 
near to us wherever we are, or whatever we may be doing. 
In all our blessings and enjoyments, we should gratefully 
acknowledge God as the Author, ‘‘the Father of lights, 
from whom cometh down every good gift, and every perfect,, 
gift.” 

God’s providential dealings toward us, personally, in giv- 
ing us so favorable a lot, in the circumstances of our birth 
and education in a land of churches, Sabbaths, and Bibles, 


229 ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER. 


and in preserving our lives in the midst of dangers, or 
| rescuing us from the grave, when in an unprepared state, 
should have a powerful effect in stirring up our minds to 
acts of gratitude. | 
But nothing so powerfully affects the mind which has 
within it the principles of true piety, as a contemplation of 
the love of God as manifested in the gift of his only begotten 
and well-beloved Son, to die on the cross for our salvation. 
‘‘ Herein is, love, not that we loved God, but that he loved 
us.” ‘We love him because he first loved us.” Nothing 
is so powerful to excite love as the well-grounded persuasion 
of the love of God tous. This motive so frequently pre- 
sented in the Scriptures should not be repudiated as 
unworthy, or selfish. It is a noble trait in any mind to be 
susceptible of lively gratitude, for benefits received. Much 
of true piety on earth, and much of the holy exercises of 
heaven, consist in the flow of grateful affection. ‘ To him 
who loved us, and gave himself for us, be honor and glory 
and praise,’’ will be the everlasting song of the redeemed. . 
38. Every habit and affection is preserved in vigor and 
increased by frequent exercise. If we desire tu strengthen 
any member of our body, or to render our senses more acute 
and susceptible, we find no method more effectual than to 
exercise incessantly those parts which we wish to improve. 
Habits and affections of the mind follow the same law, and 
are strengthened imperceptibly, but powerfully, by exercise. 
Even in regard to our affection to earthly friends, if we 
seldom think of them, and do not enjoy their company, our 
love grows cold. Hence, memorials of absent friends, and 
correspondence by letters, are so much in use; for it is 
found, that the frequent recollection of those whom we love, 
keeps alive our affection, which otherwise would be apt to 
die away for want of exercise. Thus it behoves us to keep 
ourselves in the love of God, by frequently calling up in 


KEEPING ALIVE THE LOVE OF GOD. 923 


our minds the idea of his excellence and his ineffable love 
to us. 

The cultivation of other holy affections, and the conscien- 
tious discharge of all incumbent duties, will also help to 
preserve alive our love to God. 

4, The greatest hinderance to the exercise and increase 
of our love to God, is our blindness of mind and unbelief. 
The objects of sense too much occupy and interest us; 
while spiritual and invisible objects are obscurely perceived, 
and make a feeble and transient impression on the mind. 
Although we know that God is ever present with us, and 
takes cognisance of all our thoughts and actions; yet how 
little are we affected, habitually, by this truth! 

In order, therefore, to preserve our souls in the lively 
exercise of the love of God, we must seek an. increase of 
that faith which is “‘ the substance of things hoped for, and 
the evidence of things not seen’’—that faith which ‘sees 
him, that is invisible’—which “looks not at the things 
which are seen and temporal, but at the things which are 
not seen, which are eternal.’”’ The close connection between 
faith and love is manifest from the nature of the case; as 
no object can be loved which is not perceived; and the 
more vividly an object of love is presented to the mind, the 
more is the affection increased in vigor. The Scriptures 
also teach, that it is ‘‘faith which works by love.” This 
connection between faith and love is distinctly and explicitly 
taught in the context, “‘ Wherefore, building yourselves up 
in your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep 
yourselves in the love of God.” Let us, then, often pre- 
sent that important petition, “ Lord, increase our faith.” 

5. But in the words just recited, we are admonished that. 
this desirable object cannot be accomplished by mere human 
effort. It is a solemn truth, that ‘“ without Christ we can 
do nothing.’”” Hence, while we are exhorted to act, and to 
exert ourselves to exercise faith, and to keep ourselves in 


« 


224 | ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER. 


the love of God, we are instructed to “pray in the Holy 
Ghost.’ Without the efficient aid of this divine agent, all] 
our efforts will be fruitless; but Christ has graciously 
assured us, that the Holy Spirit will be given to those who 
ask for this best of gifts. We need this aid that we may 
pray aright, ‘‘ praying in the Holy Ghost,” and we need the 
same efficient operation to give exercise to faith and love, 
and every grace. It is a delightful promise, that the Holy 
Spirit shall take up his abode in believers; so that their 
bodies become, as it were, temples of God. ‘‘ Hereby we 
know that he abideth in us by the Spirit which he hath 
given us.” ‘Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye 
shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For 
every one that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, 
and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened. If a son 
shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give 
him a stone? or, if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him 
a serpent? or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a 
scorpion? If ye, then, being evil, know how to give good 
gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly 
Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” 

II. The motives which should induce us to use all means 
to keep our souls in the love of God, are the strongest that 
can be conceived. 

1. By doing this we shall best glorify God upon earth. 
Every true Christian has this as his chief end, but all do 
not keep the object sufficiently before their minds; and all 
do not pursue steadily that course which leads directly to 
this end. Inferior objects, because they are present and 
visible, and occupy the attention of those around us, too 
frequently draw us off from our proper course. Now, to 
prevent this forgetfulness and unsteadiness, nothing will be 
so effectual as the lively exercise of the love of God. This 
holy affection will give a right direction to the thoughts, 


ee es 


KEEPING ALIVE THE LOVE OF GOD. 225 


and elevate the heart from low and grovelling, to high and 
heavenly objects. The love of God will give alacrity and 
energy in the performance of every duty; will enable us to 
bear with patience every affliction; and will render our 
devotional exercises not only pleasant, but profitable. 
Unless we have the love of God in exercise, we cannot 
glorify him; and our most painful services will be worthless. 

2. The next motive which should influence us to perform 
faithfully the duty enjoined in the text, is, that this will be 
the most effectual method of promoting the welfare and sal- 
vation of our fellow-creatures. Man is not placed here to 
live merely for himself. He is bound to love his neighbor 
as himself—to do good to all men, especially to the house- 
hold of faith. He should imitate his divine Master, who 
went about doing good, both to the bodies and souls of men. 
Christ expects his disciples to abound in good works, to let 
their light shine, that others seeing their good works may 
glorify their Father in heaven. And when he comes to col- 
lect his sheep into the eternal fold, he will make their affec- 
tionate assiduity in ministering to the necessities and comfort 
of his poor and afflicted brethren, the measure of the reward 
which he will confer on them. Now, the love of God is the 
root from which every branch of true piety springs. The 
love of our neighbor cannot exist in vigor, unless it derive 
daily strength from the love of God. If, then, you would 
abound in the fruits of holiness, be careful to water the 
root. ‘‘ Keep yourselves in the love of God,” and you will 
not cease to do good, as you may have opportunity, to your 
fellow-men. 

8. Lastly, the more we keep ourselves in the love of God, 
the more meet shall we be for the heavenly inheritance, 
where perfect love reigns in every heart. Not only so, but 
the richer reward will be possessed; for notwithstanding the 
imperfection of our services, God is pleased to make our 

8 P 


226 ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER. 


good works here, the measure of the reward which he will 
bestow hereafter. All his people are equally justified, but 
all will not be equally glorified. “In our Father’s house 
are many mansions,’ and some are doubtless much nearer — 
to the celestial throne than others. Some saints will occupy, 
in heaven, a much higher and more honorable place than 
others. All will be as happy as they are capable of being; 
but the capacity of those who loved God most fervently 
and constantly, will be greater than that of those who 
loved less. 


DBAs 
ACCESS TO GOD. 


FOSTER. 


[Joun Fosrer, a profound, liberal, and eloquent English essayist 
on morals, was born in Halifax, Yorkshire, September 17th 1770. 
He graduated for the ministry from the Baptist College at Bristol, 
and spent several years in pastoral duties. The larger part of his life, 
however, was devoted to literature, and mainly to contributions to the 
Kelectic Review. He died at Stapleton, in 1843. Of his writings the 
“most famous are: ‘‘ Essays On Decision of Character,” ‘On the Evils 
of Popular Ignorance,” and this sermon on “ Access to God.” The 
latter was republished by the Religious Tract Society, and is also con- 
tained in volume second of ‘‘ Lectures Delivered at Broadmead Chapel, 
Bristol,” shortly before his death. It has a depth and grasp of thought 
that especially commend it to the honest inquirer and searcher after 
religious truth. | 


“‘ He that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a re 
warder of them that diligently seek him.’”’—Hebrews xi. 6. 


No saying is more common among us, or perhaps leaves 
a more transient impression, than that to approach to God, 
while enjoined as a duty, is also an eminent privilege. As 
no one thinks of questioning it, we easily let it pass, as if 
there needed no more but to assent to it. 

That it can thus be an unmeaning sentence, a lifeless 
notion, indistinctly presented to the apprehension, and hold- 
ing no communication with the affections, betrays that the 
soul is taking little account of its best resources for happi- 
ness. But such it will be, unless we can be serious enough 
for an exercise of thought, to apprehend as a great and 
interesting reality what we have so often allowed ourselves 
to hear, or to utter, as little more than an insignificant 
common-place of religious discourse. Can we be content it 


should be so? When it is understood that, among the things 
: | (227) 


228 JOHN FOSTER, 


possible to man, is the very extraordinary one of “ coming to 
God,” shall we not make a faithful, earnest effort, that the 
thing so affirmed and believed may have to us all the effect 
of a reality, in being brought with clearness to our appre- 
hension, and with power over our feelings ? 

It is a wonderful idea, even as apprehended at once, in a 
single act of thought, without intermediate process of ad- 
vancing from less to greater, in ascent towards the greatest 
—the idea of the infinite, almighty, eternal Being, as to be 
approached, and spoken to, and communicated with, by man. 
But a gradation of thought, a progressive rising toward the 
transcendent and supreme, might contribute to magnify the 
wonderfulness of the fact, of man daring and permitted to 
enter into a direct communication with God.—But by what 
order and train of ideas might we seek to advance towards 
the magnificence of the contemplation ? | 

If we might allow ourselves in such an imagination, as 
that the selected portion of all humanity, the very best and 
wisest persons on earth, were brought and combined into a 
permanent assembly, and invested with a sovereign authority 
—the highest wisdom, virtue, science, and power thus united 
—would not a perfectly free access for the humblest, poorest, 
most distressed, and otherwise friendless, to such an assem- 
blage, with a certainty of their most kind and sedulous 
attention being given—of their constant wzll to render aid 
—of their wisdom and power being promptly exercised— 
would not this be deemed an inestimable privilege to all 
within the compass of such an empire? Indeed, if such a 
thing might be (an extravagantly wild imagination, we con- 
fess), it would take the place of Providence in the minds of 
the multitude, and be idolized. 

But take a higher position, and suppose that there were 
such an economy that the most illustrious of the departed . 
saints held the office of being practically, though unseen, 
patrons, protectors, assistants, guides, to men on earth; that 


ACCESS TO GOD. 229 


the spirits of patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, could be 
drawn, by those who desired it, to a direct personal atten- 
tion, and to an exercise of their benignity and interference 
—would not this appear a resource of incalculable value ? 
It is because it naturally would be so, that the Romish 
church was so successful in imposing on the people the fiction 
of such an economy as an undoubted reality (and, indeed, 
paganism had before done something of a similar kind). So 
gratifying, so consoling, so animating, has this imaginary 
privilege been felt by millions of that church, that their 
devotion has seemed actually to stop at this level of invisible 
existence; the Almighty Father, and the Redeemer, com- 
paratively forgotten. 

But there is another far loftier ascension. We are 
informed of a glorious order of intelligences that have never 
dwelt in flesh; many of whom may have enjoyed their exist- 
ence from a remoteness of time surpassing what we can 
conceive of eternity; with an immense expansion of being 
and powers; with a perpetual augmentation of the goodness 
inspired by their Creator; and exercising their virtues and 
unknown powers in appointed offices of beneficence through- 
out the system of unnumbered worlds. Would it not seem 
a pre-eminent privilege, if the children of the dust might 
obtain a direct communication with them; might invoke 
them, accost them, draw them to a fixed attention, and with 
a sensible evidence of their indulgent patience and celestial 
benignity ? Would not this seem an exaltation of felicity, 
throwing into shade everything that could be imagined to be 
derived to us from the benevolence and power of mortal or. 
glorified humanity ? 

Now, here we are at the summit of created existence; and 
up to this sublime elevation we have none of these supposed 
privileges. No! there is no such conjunction of the greatest 
virtue, wisdom, and power on earth. Departed saints have 
no appointment to hear our petitions; and when we perceive, 


230 JOHN FOSTER. 
e 


as it were, the distant radiance of an inconceivably nobler 
order of beings, it is with the consciousness that we-cannot 
come into their sensible presence and recognition, cannot 
invoke their express attention, cannot lay hold on their 
power, cannot commit to them the momentous charge of our 
interests. 

Thus we have ascended by degrees to the most illustrious 
of created beings, for the transient luxury of imagining what 
it would be to engage in our favor the intelligence, goodness, 
and power of those glorious spirits; but to find ourselves 
hopelessly far off from such access. In the capacity of 
receiving our petitions, they exist not for us; as to that 
object, these mighty agents are strangers to us. 

What, then, to do next? Next, our spirits have to raise 
their thoughts to an awful elevation above all subordinate 
existence in earth and heaven, in order to approach a pre- 
sence where they may implore a beneficent attention, and 
enter into a communication with Him who is uncreated and 
infinite ; a transition compared to which the distance from 
the inferior to the nobler, and then to the noblest of created 
beings, is reduced to nothing; as one lofty eminence on an 
elevated mountain—and a higher,—and the highest—but 
thence to the starry heavens ! 

But think, who is it that is thus to “‘ come to God!” 
Man! little, feeble, mortal, fallen, sinful man! He is, if 
we may speak in such language, to venture an act expressly 
to arrest the attention of that stupendous Being; to signify, 
in the most direct manner, that he is by choice and design 
in that presence intentionally to draw on himself the notice, 
the aspect of the Almighty. The purpose is, to speak to 
Him in a personal manner; to detain Him in communica- 
tion. The approaching petitioner is to utter thoughts, for 
God to admit them into His thoughts! He would cause 
himself to be distinctly and individually listened to by a 
Being who is receiving the adoration of the most exalted 


ACCESS TO GOD, 931 | 


spirits, and of all the holy intelligences in the universe; by 
Him whose power is sustaining and governing all its regions 
and inhabitants. He seeks to cause his words to be listened 
to by Him whose own words may be, at the very time, com- 
manding new creations into existence. 

But reflect, also, that it is an act to call the special atten- 
tion of Him whose purity has a perfect perception of all that 
is evil, that is unholy, in the creature that approaches Him; 
of Him whom the applicant is conscious he has not, to the 
utmost of his faculties, adored or loved: alas! the very 
contrary. 

What a striking, what an amazing view is thus presented 
of the situation the unworthy mortal is placed in, the posi- 
tion which he presumes to take, in “ coming to God.” How 
surprising then it is, how alarming it well may be, to reflect 
on the manner in which, too often, we use this privilege! 
What a miserably faint conception of the Sovereign Majesty ! 
A reverence so defective in solemnity, that it admits the 
intrusion of every trivial suggestion. Thoughts easily 
diverted away by the slightest casual association. An 
inanimate state of feeling, indifference almost, in petitioning 
the greatest blessings, and deprecating the most fearful 
evils. So that, on serious reflection, the consciousness would 
be forced upon us, of its being too much to hope that such 
devotions can be accepted, such petitions granted. 

To rebuke’this irreligion, infesting and spoiling the very 
acts of religion, think again of the situation of such a crea- 
ture as man coming into the immediate presence of the 
Divine Majesty. ‘The very extremes of spiritual existence 
—the infinitely Most Glorious, and theslowest, meanest of 
all, brought into communication; the absolutely holy, and 
the miserably depraved—the guilty. We may conceive that 
a creature of even such humble rank as man, if he were but 
perfectly innocent, might approach to a communication with 
the Hternal and Infinite Essence, though not without inex- 


232 JOHN FOSTER. 


pressible awe, yet without terror; but since he is impure 


and guilty, the idea of his ‘coming to God” would be no 
other than the image of a perishable thing brought within 
the action of “a consuming fire ;” the moral quality of the 
Divine Nature being in direct antipathy to that of such a 
creature approaching. Let a man, really and deeply affected 
with the debasement of his nature and his individual guilt, 
stand consciously before the all-perfect holiness of God; let 
him think what it must be to come in immediate contact 
(shall we say ?) with that holiness; every look at his sinful- 
ness, every secret accusation of his conscience, would fix and 
determine his attention to the Divine holiness—irresistibly 
: for in all compari- 
sons, even with our fellow-men, our attention fixes the most 
strongly on that in which we are the most in contrast and 
antipathy with them, especially when the contrast presents 
something for us to fear. So with a creature consciously 
full of sin in immediate approach to Him who is ‘glorious 
in holiness ;” the attention would be arrested by that, as an 
opposite, a hostile, and a terrible quality; and the longer it 
were beheld, the more it would appear kindling and glowing 
into a consuming flame. 

A sinful being immediately under the burning rays of 
Omnipotent Holiness! The idea is so fearful, that one 
might think it should be the most earnest, the most passionate 
desire of a human soul, that there should be some interven- 
tion to save it from the fatal predicament. No wonder, then, 
that the most devout men of every age of the Christian dis- 
pensation have welcomed with joy and gratitude the doctrine 
of a Mediator, manifested in the person of the Son of God, 
by whom the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man are, 
as it were, kept asunder; and a happy communication can 
take place through the medium of One who stands before the 
Divine Majesty of Justice, in man’s behalf, with a Props 
tion and a perfect righteousness. 





ee 


ACCESS TO GOD. 200 


Thus far, and too long, we have dwelt on the wonderful- 
ness of the fact and the greatness of the privilege of “‘ coming 
to God.” We have to consider, a little, with what faith this 
is to be done. ‘‘ Must believe that he is, and that he is the 
rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” 

The fact of the Divine existence must be assumed by the 
seeker for permanent good. What a condition it were to be 
looking round and afar into boundless inanity in quest of it ! 
uttering the importunate and plaintive ery, ‘‘ Who will show 
us any good ?’’—directed first to poor fellow-mortals, who 
can only respond in the same words; and then to the 
fantastic, shadowy creatures of imagination—nature, for- 
tune, chance, good genii. | 

‘Must believe that he is.’”” Must have a most absolute 
conviction that there is one Being infinitely unlike and 
superior to all others; the sole Self-existent, All-compre- 
hending, and All-powerful; a reality in such a sense that 
all other things are but precarious modes of being, subsisting 
simply in virtue of his will ;—must pass through and beyond 
the sphere of sense, to have a spiritual sight of ‘‘ Him that is 
invisible;’’ and, more than merely a principle held in the 
understanding, must verify the solemn reality in a vitally 
pervading sentiment of the soul. 

And what a glory of intellect and faith thus to possess a. 
truth which is the sun in our mental sphere, the supreme 
itself of all lights, and whence radiate all the illuminations 
and felicities that can bless the rational creation! And what 
a casting down from heaven, as it may well be named,— 
what a spectacle of debasement and desolation is presented 
to us, when we behold the frightful phenomenon of a rational 
creature disbelieving a God! There are such men, who can’ 
look abroad on this amazing universe, and deny there is a 
supreme intelligent Cause and Director; and if some of these 
are possessed of extraordinary talent and knowledge, the 
fact may show what human reason is capable of, when reject- 


234 JOHN FOSTER. 


ing, and rejected by, Divine influence; and we may presage 
the horrible amazement, when that truth respecting which 
the lights of science and the splendors of the sky have left 
them in the dark, shall at length suddenly burst on them ! 

‘“‘He that cometh to God must believe that he is.” But 
how easily it may be said, “‘ We have that faith; we never 
denied or doubted that there is such a Being.” Well; but 
reflect, and ascertain in what degree the general tenor of 
your feelings, and your habits of life, have been different 
from what they might have been if you had disbelieved or 
doubted. The expression “coming to” him, seems to tell 
something of a previous distance ; see, then, what’ may have 
been, in a spiritual sense, the distance at which you have 
lived from him. Has it been the smallest at which a feeble, 
sinful creature must still necessarily be left, notwithstanding 
an earnest, persisting effort to approach him; or rather the 
greatest that a mere notional acknowledgment of his exist- 
ence would allow? What a wide allowance is that! and 
what a melancholy condition to have only such a faith con- 
cerning the most glorious and beneficent Object, as shall 
leave us contented to be so far off from him! | 

This belief cannot bring the soul in effectual approach to 
God, unless it be a penetrating conviction that the truth so 
believed is a truth of mightiest import; that, there being a 
God, we have to do with him every moment; that all will be 
wrong with us unless this awful reality command and occupy 
our spirits; that this faith must be the predominating autho- 
rity over our course through the world, the determining 
consideration in our volitions' and actions. When we say 
then, that we have this belief, the grave question is, What 
does it do for us? Are we at a loss to tell what? Can we 
not verify to ourselves that we have this belief, in any other 
way than by repeating that we believe ? 

The effectual faith in the Divine existence always looks to 
consequences. In acknowledging each glorious attribute, it 


ACCESS. TO\ GOD. 235 


regards the aspect which it bears on the worshipper, infer- 
ring what will therefore be because that is. It is not a valid 
faith in the Divinity, as regarded in any of his attributes, 
till it excite the solicitous thought, ‘‘ And what then?” He 
as, aS supreme in goodness; and what then? Then, how 
precious is every assurance from himself that he is accessible 
tous! Then, is it not the truest insanity in the creation to 
be careless of his favor? Then, happy they, for ever happy, 
who obtain that fayor, by devoting themselves. to seek it. 
Then, let us instantly and ardently proceed to act on the 
conviction that he is the ‘“rewarder of them that diligently 
seek him.” } 

This actuating conviction must be decided and absolute 
in him that “cometh to God.” He must feel positively 
assured it will not be just the same to him, in the event of 
things, whether he diligently seek God or not. Without 
this, there cannot be a motive of force enough to draw or 
impel him to the spiritual enterprise. His soul will stagnate 
in a comfortless, hopeless, and almost atheistical inaction ; 
or, with a painful activity of imagination, he may picture 
forth forms of. the good which such a being as the Almighty 
could do for him, and then see those visions depart as some 
vain creations of poetry; or he may try to give to what 
keeps him afar from God a character of reason and _ philo- 
sophy, by perverted inferences from the unchangeableness 
of the Divine purposes, or the necessary course of things ; 
or he may pretend a pious dread of presuming to prescribe 
to the Sovereign Wisdom: all, in effect, terminating in the 
profane question, ‘‘ What profit shall we have if we pray to 
him ?” 

Without the assured belief that something of immense 
importance is depending on the alternative of rendering or 
withholding the homage of devout application, all aspiration 
is repressed, and we are left, as it were, prone on the earth. 
We are to hold it for certain, that, even though divers events, 


236m > JOHN FOSTER. 


simply as facts, may be the same in either case, yet some- 
thing involved in them, and in the effect of the whole series 
of events, will be infinitely different. In each opportune 
season for coming to God by supplication, at each repetition 
of the gracious invitations to do so, at each admonition of 
conscience, there is a voice which tells him that something 
most invaluable would, really would, be gained by sincere, 
earnest, and constant application. He should say to him- 
self, [am not to remain inactive, as if just waiting to see 
what will come to pass, like a man expecting the rain or 
sunshine which he can do nothing to bring on his meadow or 
garden. If God be true, there is something to be granted 
to such application, that wll not be granted without it. As 
to the particular order of providential dispensation, I can 
know nothing of the Divine purposes ; but, as to the general 
scope, I do know perfectly that one thing is in God’s deter- 


mination, namely, to fulfil his promises. By a humble, 


faithful, persevering importunity of prayer in the name of 
Christ, I have an assured hold upon,—or, by a neglect of it, 
I let loose from my grasp and hope,—all those things which 
he has promised to such prayer. I am, then, assured he is 
the “‘rewarder,” inasmuch as I know zt will not be all the 
same to me whether I seek him or not. And here we may 
instantly break through all speculative sophistry, by appeal- 
ing to any man who believes anything of revelation: “ Do 
you really believe that it will not, in the final result, and 
even in this world too, make a vast difference whether you 
shall or shall not be habitually, through life, an earnest 
applicant for the Divine blessing? Answer this question ; 
answer it to yourself, from your inmost conviction.”’ 

Let it be observed here, that, God having indicated by his 
precepts the way in which, conditionally, he will manifest his 
goodness to men, that way, as so set forth, must be the best. 
It is not, therefore, a mere dictate of sovereign authority, 
but a wise adjustment of the means for men’s» happiness. 





ACCESS TO GOD. 237 


His goodness is not greater in his willingness to confer his 
favors, than in the appointment how they shall be conferred ; 
that is, the preceptive rule according to which we are to 
expect them. 

That preceptive rule is conspicuous throughout the Bible. 
That we should “seek God,” in the way of unceasing appli- 
cation for his mercies, is inculcated and reiterated in every 
form of cogent expression. Then we are justly required to 
believe, confidently, that as this is the very best and only 
expedient, God will combine the happiness of his servants 
with their faithful observance of an injunction zntended for 
their happiness; that it will be attended by tokens of the 
Divine complacency ; that in keeping the precept there will 
be “great reward.” Like Enoch, they will have “ this testi- 
mony, that they pleased God.” 

“Must believe that he is the rewarder.” This faith is 
required in consideration of the intention (might we presume 
to say, reverently, the sincerity ?) of the heavenly Father in. 
calling men to come to him. “TI have not said, Seek ye me 
in vain.’ To what purpose are they thus required to make. 
his favor the object of their eternal aspiration; to forego all 
things rather than this; to renounce, for this, everything 
which it is the perverted tendency of the human soul to 
prefer; to say, ‘Whom have I in heaven but thee? and 
there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee?” Why 
invited to give their affections, devote their life, and their 
very existence, to acknowledge their dependence, and testify 
their confidence by unceasing petitions, and to strive fer- 
vently to obtain a more intimate access to him? Why thus 
summoned, and trained, and exercised, to a lofty ambition 
far above the world? Not to frustrate all this labor, not to 
disappoint them of the felicity to which they continually 
aspire! They “must believe that he is a rewarder;’” that 
he is not thus calling and constraining them up a long, 
laborious ascent, only that they may behold his glorious 


238 JOHN FOSTER. 


throne, come near to his blissful paradise, do him homage at 
its gate, and then be shut out. 

Consider again: it is because there is a Mediator, that 
sinful men presume, and are authorized, to approach to God, 
seeking that—no more than that—which the mysterious 
appointment was made, in Divine justice and mercy, for the 
purpose of conferring on them. Then they must believe, 
that this glorious office cannot but be availing to their success. 
There is a peculiar virtue in such a special, remedial inter- 
position to secure its own infallible efficacy, since it was 
expressly because the original constitution of our nature had 
failed, and must remain powerless and hopeless for happiness, 
that this special and extraordinary one was brought into 
existence; and an expedient which has been adopted, in the 
Divine government, to accomplish an end for which all else 
has been proved incompetent, must have a special and pecu- 
liar sufficiency for that end. What has been appointed, in 
the last resort, in substitution and in remedy of an antecedent 
economy, because that has failed, must be, by eminence, of 
a nature not itself to fail. It rises up conspicuous and 
impregnable when all around has sunk in ruin; like some 
mighty rock brought up into the light, and standing high in 
immovable stability, in the rending and subsidence of the 
ground by earthquake. 

They that “‘come to God” in confidence on this new 
Divine constitution, will find that he, in justice to his appoint- 
ment of a Mediator, will grant what is promised and sought 
in virtue of zt; in other words, will be a ‘‘vewarder”’ for 
Christ’s sake. And what is that in which it will be verified 
to them “that he is a rewarder?”’ For what will they have 
to adore and bless him as such? For the grandest benefits 
which even He can impart—can impart in doing full justice 
to the infinite merits of the appointed Redeemer.—<An ines- 
timable privilege! that those greatest blessings may be asked 
for, positively and. specifically ; whereas the minor benefits 








ACCESS TO GOD, 239 


are to be requested conditionally, and it is better that the 
applicants should not be certain of obtaining them. It is 
enough for their faith as to these, that an infinitely wiser 
judgment than theirs will be exercised in selecting, giving, 
withholding, adjusting. 

But the important admonition, to be repeated here in 
concluding, is, that all this is for them ‘that diligently 
seek ;” so habitually, importunately, perseveringly, that it 
shall really, and in good faith, be made the primary concern 
of our life; so that, while wishes and impulses to obtazn are 
incessantly springing and darting from the busy soul in 
divers directions, there shall still be one predominant impulse 
directed towards heaven. And, if such representations as 
we have been looking at be true, think—(it is truly a most 
striking reflection),—think what might be obtained by all of 
us, who have them at this hour soliciting our attention, on 
the supposition that we all should henceforward be earnest 
applicants to the Sovereign Rewarder. Think of the mighty 
amount of good, in time and eternity, as our collective 
wealth ; and of the value of every individual share. 

We said, ‘‘on the supposition ;”’ but why are we to admit 
a word so ominous? for while, on the one side, it points to 
a grand sum of good, with an averment of Him who has it 
to give that it may be ours, it darkly intimates, on the other, 
that possibly it may not, may never be ours; that we may 
practically consent that zt shall not. But may we, believing 
such things all the while, may we really so consent? With 
such treasure held forth in our view, and for our attainment, 
by the munificent Benefactor, and seeing some of our com- 
panions actually attaining it, can we consent to a melan- 
choly destitution by foregoing it? Consent to forego! And 
to what is it that such consent would be yielded? Could it 
be to anything else than a malignant, dire, accursed per- 
versity of our nature? No terms of execration are too 
intense for the noxious thing, within our own selves, that 


240 JOHN FOSTER. 


stupefies our affections and our will to the madness of telling 
our God, in effect, that we can do without his rewards, that 
he may confer them where they are more desired; while we 
will look on and see others take them all away, content to 
retain and cherish in their stead that deadly enemy within, 
which compels us to let them go. 

Can we not be so content? ‘Then, finally, what we have 
the most urgent cause to seek Him for is, that He will deli- 
ver us from that which keeps us from Him. We have to 
implore, “O merciful Power! abolish whatever it is that 
would detain us at a fatal distance from thee. Let the 
breath of thy Spirit consume the unbelief, the reluctance, 
the indifference, the world’s enchantments, that would fix us 
under the doom to ‘behold thee, but not nigh.’ Apply to 
these averse or heedless spirits such a blessed compulsion as 
shall not leave it even possible for us to be within reach of 
the sovereign good, and yet linger till all be lost.” 

And if, by unwearied seeking, we obtain this, it will 
emphatically be a “reward,” for which all under the sun 
might be gladly given away. 


a aula 


Vis 
THE LONELINESS OF CHRIST. 


ROBERTSON. 

[As the grandson and son of English military officers, the aspira- 
tions, life, and character of Rev. Freprerick Witi1am RoBpertson 
were naturally permeated with the spirit of fearlessness, manliness, 
and ardor. He was emphatically a Christian Soldier—brave, impul- 
sive, chivalrous, and wholly unselfish. To these characteristics were 
added the gifts of great grasp of thought, keen intellectual incisive- 
ness, rare independence of character, acute sensibility to the beautiful, 
child-like purity of soul, and a tongue nerved with spiritual fire. His 
Sermons are household words. Yet he is not always a safe guide: 
he fails to recognise the fundamental necessity and spirituality of our 
Redeemer’s atonement; and concerning the Lord’s Day, he substi- 
tutes license for the law of God. In unfolding the humanity of 
Christ Jesus, and the prerogatives of manliness, he is peerless. Born 
in London, February 3d 1816; educated at Oxford ; at first seeking, 
but afterwards declining, an army commission; repeatedly battling 
against a keenly sensitive, overwrought nervous temperament; a 
curate for four years in Cheltenham; a six years’ incumbency in 
Trinity Chapel, Brighton, ending with his death at the early age of 
thirty-seven, August 15th 1853: such is his biography, in brief. ] 


* Jesus answered them, Do ye now believe? Behold, the hour cometh, 
yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered every man to his own, and 
shall leave me alone; and yet Iam not alone, because the Father is 
with me.’’—John xvi. 31, 32. 


THERE are two kinds of solitude: the first consisting of 
insulation in space; the other, of isolation of the spirit. 
The first is simply separation by distance. When we are 
seen, touched, heard by none, we are said to be alone. And 
all hearts respond to the truth of that saying, This is not 
solitude; for sympathy can people our solitude with a 
crowd. The fisherman on the ocean alone at night is not 


alone, when he remembers the earnest longings which are 
Q (241) 


242 FREDERICK W. ROBERTSON. 


arising up to heaven at home for his safety. The traveller 
is not alone, when the faces which will greet him on his 
arrival seem to beam upon him as he trudges on. The 
solitary student is not alone, when he feels that human 
hearts will respond to the truths which he is preparing to 
address to them. 

The other is loneliness of soul. There are times when 
hands touch ours, but only send an icy chill of unsympa- 
thizing indifference to the heart ; when eyes gaze into ours, 
but with a glazed look which cannot read into the bottom 
of our souls; when words pass from our lips, but only come 
back as an echo reverberated without reply through a dreary 
solitude; when the multitude throng and press us, and we 
cannot say, as Christ said, ‘Somebody hath touched me:” 
for the contact has been not between soul and soul, but only 
between form and form. 

And there are two kinds of men, who feel this last soli- 
tude in different ways. The first are the men of self- 
reliance,—self-dependent: who ask no counsel, and crave 
no sympathy; who act and resolve alone,—who can go 
sternly through duty, and scarcely shrink, let what will be 
crushed in them. Such men command respect: for who- 
ever respects himself constrains the respect of others. 
They are invaluable in all those professions of life in which 
sensitive feeling would be a superfluity: they make iron 
commanders, surgeons who do not shrink, and statesmen 
who do not flinch from their purpose for the dread of 
unpopularity. But mere self-dependence is weakness; and 
the conflict is terrible when a human sense of weakness is 
felt by such men. Jacob was alone when he slept in his 
way to Padan Aram, the first night that he was away from 
his father’s roof, with the world before him, and all the old 
‘broken up; and Elijah was alone in the wilderness when 
the court had deserted him, and he said, ‘‘ They have digged 
down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword: 


“ 


THE LONELINESS OF CHEIST. 243 


and I, even I, only am left, and they seek my life to take it 
away. But the loneliness of the tender Jacob was very 
different from that of the stern Elijah. To Jacob the 
sympathy he yearned for was realized in the form of a 
gentle dream. A ladder raised from earth to heaven figured 
the possibility of communion between the spirit of man and 
the Spirit of God. In Elijah’s case, the storm, and the 
earthquake, and the fire, did their convulsing work in the 
soul, before a still, small voice told him that he was not 
alone. In such a spirit the sense of weakness comes with a 
burst of agony, and the dreadful conviction of being alone 
manifests itself with a rending of the heart of rock. It is 
only so that such souls can be taught that the Father is 
with them, and that they are not alone. 

There is another class of men, who live in sympathy. 
These are affectionate minds, which tremble at the thought 
of being alone: not from want of courage nor from weak- 
ness of intellect comes their dependence upon others, but 
from the intensity of their affections. It is the trembling 
spirit of humanity in them. They want not aid, nor even 
countenance, but only sympathy. And the trial comes to 
them not in the shape of fierce struggle, but of chill and 
utter loneliness, when they are called upon to perform a 
duty on which the world looks coldly, or to embrace a truth 
which has not found lodgment yet in the breasts of others. 

It is to this latter and not to the former class that we 
must look, if we would understand the spirit in which the 
words of the text were pronounced. The deep Humanity 
of the Soul of Christ was gifted with those finer sensibilities 
of affectionate nature which stand in need of sympathy. 
He not only gave sympathy, but wanted it, too, from others. 
He who selected the gentle John to be his friend,—who 
found solace in female sympathy, attended by the women 
who ministered to Him out of their substance,—who in the 
Trial hour could not bear even to pray without the human 


244 FREDERICK W. ROBERTSON. 


presence, which is the pledge and reminder of God’s pre- 
sence, had nothing in Him of the hard, merely self- 
dependent character. Even this verse testifies to the same 
fact. A stern spirit never could have said, “I am not 
alone: the Father is with me;’’ never would have felt the 
loneliness which needed the balancing truth. These words 
tell of a struggle, an inward reasoning, a difficulty and a 
reply, a sense of solitude,—‘‘I shall be alone;’’ and an 
immediate correction of that: ‘‘ Not alone: the Father is 
with Me.” 

There is no thought connected with the Life of Christ 
more touching, none that seems so peculiarly to characterize 
His Spirit, as the solitariness in which he lived. Those 
who understood Him best only understood him half. Those 
who knew Him best scarcely could be said to know Him. 
On this occasion the disciples thought, Now we do under- 
stand, now we do believe. ‘The lonely Spirit answered, “‘ Do 
ye now believe? Behold the hour cometh that ye shall be 
scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone.” 

Very impressive is that trait in His history. He was in 
this world alone. 

I. First, then, we meditate on the loneliness of Christ. 

II. On the temper of His solitude. 

1. The loneliness of Christ was caused by the Divine 
elevation of His character. His infinite superiority severed 
Him from sympathy; His exquisite affectionateness made 
that want of sympathy a keen trial. 

There is a second-rate greatness which the world can 
comprehend. If we take two who are brought into direct 
contrast by Christ Himself, the one the type of human, the 
other that of Divine excellence, the Son of Man and John 
the Baptist, this becomes clearly manifest. John’s life had 
a certain rude, rugged goodness, on which was written, in 
characters which required no magnifying-glass to read, 
spiritual excellence. The world, on the whole, accepted 


THE LONELINESS OF CHRIST. ' 945 


him. Pharisees and Sadducees went to his baptism.. The 
people idolized him as a prophet; and, if he had not chanced 
to cross the path of a weak prince and a revengeful woman, 
we can see no reason why John might not have finished his 
course with joy, recognised as irreproachable. If we 
inquire why it was that the world accepted John and 
rejected Christ, one reply appears to be, that the life of the 
one was finitely simple and one-sided, that of the Other 
divinely complex. In physical nature, the naturalist finds 
no difficulty in comprehending the simple structure of the 
lowest organizations of animal life, where one uniform 
texture, and one organ performing the office of brain and 
heart and lungs, at once, leave little to perplex. But when 
he comes to study the complex anatomy of man, he has the 
labor of a lifetime before him. It is not difficult to master 
the constitution of a single country; but when you try to 
understand the universe, you find infinite appearances of 
contradiction: law opposed by law; motion balanced by 
motion; happiness blended with misery; and the power to 
elicit a divine order and unity out of this complex variety 
is given to only a few of the gifted of the race. That 
which the structure of man is to the structure of the limpet, 
that which the universe is to a single country, the complex 
and boundless soul of Christ was to the souls of other men. 
Therefore, to the superficial observer, His life was a mass 
of inconsistencies and contradictions. All thought them- 
selves qualified to point out the discrepancies. The Phari- 
sees could not comprehend how a holy Teacher could eat 
with publicans and sinners. His own brethren could not 
reconcile His assumption of a public office with the privacy 
which He aimed at keeping. ‘If thou doest these things, 
show thyself to the world.” Some thought He was “a 
good man;” others said, “Nay, but He deceiveth the 
people.” And hence it was that He lived to see all that 
acceptance which had marked the earlier stage of His 


/ 


246 FREDERICK W. ROBERTSON. 


career—as, for instance, at Capernaum—melt away. First, 
the Pharisees took the alarm; then the Sadducees; then 
the political party of the Herodians; then the people. 
That was the most terrible of all: for the enmity of the 
upper classes is impotent ; but when that cry of brute force 
is stirred from the deeps of society, as deaf to the voice of 
reason as the ocean in its strength churned into raving foam 
by the winds, the heart of mere earthly oak quails before 
that. The apostles, at all events, did quail. One denied; 
another betrayed; all deserted. ‘They ‘were scattered, 
each to his own:” and the Truth Himself was left alone in 
Pilate’s judgment-hall. 

Now learn from this a very important distinction. To 
feel solitary is no uncommon thing. ‘To complain of being 
alone, without sympathy, and misunderstood, is general 
enough. In every place, in many a family, these victims 
of diseased sensibility are to be found, and they might find 
a weakening satisfaction in observing a parallel between 
their own feelings and those of Jesus. But before that 
parallel is assumed, be very sure that it is, as in His case, 
the elevation of your character which severs you from your 
species. The world has small sympathy for Divine good- 
ness; but it also has little for a great many other qualities 
which are disagreeable to it. You meet with no response; 
you are passed by; find yourself unpopular; meet with 
little communion. Well! Is that because you are above 
the world,—nobler, devising and executing grand plans, 
which they cannot comprehend; vindicating the wronged ; 
proclaiming and living on great principles; offending it by 
the saintliness of your purity, and the unworldliness of 
your aspirations? ‘Then yours is the loneliness of Christ. 
Or is it that you are wrapped up in self,—cold, disobliging, 
sentimental,, indifferent about the welfare of others, and 
very much astonished that they are not deeply interested in 


THE LONELINESS OF CHRIST. 247 


you? You must not use these words of Christ. They 
have nothing to do with you. 

Let us look at one or two of the occasions on which this 
loneliness was felt. 

The first time was when He was but twelve years old, 
when His parents found Him in the temple, hearing the 
Doctors and asking them questions. High thoughts were 
in the Child’s soul: expanding views of life; larger views 
of duty, and His own destiny. 

There is a moment in every true life—to some it comes 
very early—when the old routine of duty is not large 
enough; when the parental roof seems too low, because the 
Infinite above is arching over the soul; when the old 
formulas, in creeds, catechisms, and articles, seem to be 
narrow, and they must either be thrown aside, or else trans- 
formed into living and breathing realities ; when the earthly 
father’s authority is being superseded by the claims of a 
Father in heaven. 

That is a lonely, lonely moment, when the young soul 
first feels God—when this earth is recognised as an ‘ awful 
place, yea, the very gate of heaven;’’ when the dream- 
ladder is seen planted against the skies, and we wake, and 
the dream haunts us as a sublime reality. 

You may detect the approach of that moment in the 
young man or the young woman by the awakened spirit of 
inquiry; by a certain restlessness of look, and an eager 
earnestness of tone; by the devouring study of all kinds 
of books; by the waning of your own influence, while the 
inquirer is asking the truth of the Doctors and Teachers in 
the vast Temple of the world; by a certain opinionativeness, 
which is austere and disagreeable enough; but the austerest 
moment of the fruit’s taste is that in which it is passing 
from greenness into ripeness. If you wait in patience, the 
sour will become sweet. Rightly looked at, that opiniona- 
tiveness is more truly anguish; the fearful solitude of 


248 FREDERICK W. ROBERTSON. 


feeling the insecurity of all that is human; the discovery 
that life is real, and forms of social and religious existence 
hollow. The old moorings are torn away, and the soul is 
drifting, drifting, drifting, very often without compass, 
except the guidance of an unseen hand, into the vast infinite 
of God. Then come the lonely words, and no wonder, 
“‘ How is it that ye sought me? Wist ye not that I must 
be about my Father’s business ?”’ 

2. That solitude was felt by Christ in trial. In the 
desert, in Pilate’s judgment-hall, in the garden, He was 
alone; and alone must every son of man meet his trial-hour. 
The individuality of the soul necessitates that. Each man 
is a new soul in this world: untried, with a boundless Possi- 
ble before him. No one can predict what he may become, 
prescribe his duties, or mark out his obligations. Hach 
man’s own nature has its own peculiar rules; and he must 
take up his life-plan alone, and persevere in it in a perfect 
privacy with which no stranger intermeddleth. - Hach man’s 
temptations are made up of a host of peculiarities, internal 
and external, which no other mind can measure. You are 
tried alone; alone you pass into the desert; alone you 
must bear and conquer in the Agony; alone you must be 
sifted by the world. ‘There are moments known only to a 
man’s own self, when he sits by the poisoned springs of 
existence, “yearning for a morrow which shall free him 
from the strife.’ And there are trials more terrible than 
that. Not when vicious inclinations are opposed to holy, 
but when virtue conflicts with virtue, is the real rending of 
the soul in twain. A temptation, in which the lower nature 
struggles for mastery, can be met by the whole united force 
of the spirit. But it is when obedience to a heavenly 
Father can be only paid by disobedience to an earthly one; 
or fidelity to duty can be only kept by infidelity to some 
entangling engagement; or the straight path must be taken 
over the misery of others; or the counsel of the affectionate 


THE LONELINESS OF CHRIST. 249 


friend must be met with a “‘ Get thee behind me, Satan :’— 
O! itis then, when human advice is unavailable, that the 
soul feels what it is to be alone. 

Once more:—the Redeemer’s soul was alone in dying. 
The hour had come,—they were all gone, and He was, as 
He predicted, left alone. All that is human drops from us 
in that hour. Human faces flit and fade, and the sounds 
of the world become confused. ‘I shall die alone,’’—yes, 
and alone you live. The philosopher tells us that no atom 
in creation touches another atom,—they only approach 
Within a certain distance; then the attraction ceases, and 
an invisible something repels,—they only seem to touch. 
No soul touches another soul except at one or two points, 
and those chiefly external,—a fearful and a lonely thought, 
but one of the truest of life. Death only realizes that 
which has been fact all along. In the central deeps of our 
being we are alone. 

II. The spirit or temper of that solitude. 

1. Observe its grandeur. I am alone, yet not alone. 
There is a feeble and sentimental way in which we speak 
of the Man of sorrows. We turn to the Cross, and the 
Agony, and the Loneliness, to touch the softer feelings—to 
arouse compassion. You degrade that loneliness by your 
compassion. Compassion! compassion for Him! Adore if 
you will,—respect and reverence that sublime solitariness 
with which none but the Father was,—but no pity; let it 
draw out the firmer and manlier graces of the soul. Even 
tender sympathy seems out of place. 

For even in human things, the strength that is in a man 
can be only learnt when he is thrown upon his own resources 
and left alone. What a man can do in conjunction with 
others does not test the man. Tell us what he can do alone. 
It is one thing to defend the truth when you know that 
your audience are already prepossessed, and that every 
argument will meet a willing response; and it is another 


250 FREDERICK W. ROBERTSON. 


thing to hold the truth when truth must be supported, if at 
all, alone,—met by cold looks and unsympathizing suspicion. 
It is one thing to rush on to danger with the shouts and the 
sympathy of numbers; it is another thing when the lonely 
chieftain of the sinking ship sees the last boat-full disengage 
itself, and folds his arms to go down into the majesty of 
darkness, crushed, but not subdued. 

Such and greater far was the strength and majesty of 
the Saviour’s solitariness. It was not the trial of the 
lonely hermit.. There is a certain gentle and pleasing 
melancholy in the life which is lived alone. But there are 
the forms of nature to speak to him; and he has not the 
positive opposition of mankind, if he has the absence of 
actual sympathy. It is a solemn thing, doubtless, to be 
apart from men, and to feel eternity rushing by like an 
arrowy river. But the solitude of Christ was the solitude 
of acrowd. In that single Human bosom dwelt the Thought 
which was to be the germ of the world’s life—a thought 
unshared, misunderstood, or rejected. Can you not feel the 
grandeur of those words, when the Man, reposing on His 
solitary strength, felt the last shadow of perfect isolation 
pass across His soul :—‘*My God, my God, why hast Thou 
forsaken me ?”’ 

Next, learn from these words self-reliance.. ‘‘ Ye shall 
leave me alone.” Alone, then, the Son of Man was content 
to be. He threw Himself on-His own solitary thought: 
did not go down to meet the world; but waited, though it 
might be for ages, till the world should come round to Him. 
He appealed to the Future, did not aim at seeming consistent, 
left His contradictions unexplained :—I came from the 
Father,—I leave the world, and go to the Father. ‘ Now,” 
sald they, “‘ thou speakest no proverb:” that is, enigma. 
But many a hard and enigmatical saying before He had 
spoken, and He left them all. A thread runs through all 
true acts, stringing them together into one harmonious 


THE LONELINESS OF CHRIST. 251 


chain: but itis not for the Son of God to be anxious to 
prove their consistency with each other. 

This is self-reliance—to repose calmly on the thought 
which is deepest in our bosoms, and be unmoved if the world 
will not accept it yet. To live on your own convictions 
against the world, is to overcome the world—to believe that 
what is truest in you is true for all: to abide by that, and 
not he over-anxious to be heard or understood, or sympa- 
thized with, certain that at last all must acknowledge the 
same, and that, while you stand firm, the world will come 
round to you—that is independence. It is not difficult to 
get away into retirement, and there live upon your own con- 
victions ; nor is it difficult to mix with men, and follow their 
convictions ; but to enter into the world, and there live out 
firmly and fearlessly according to your own conscience— 
that is Christian greatness. 

There is a cowardice in this age which is not Christian. 
We shrink from the consequences of truth. We look round 
and cling dependently. We ask what men will think; what 
others will say; whether they will not stare in astonishment. 
Perhaps they will; but he who is calculating that will 
accomplish nothing in this life. The Father—the Father 
which is with us and in us—what does He think? God’s 
work cannot be done without a spirit of independence. A 
man is got some way in the Christian life when he has 
learned to say humbly, and yet majestically, ‘I dare to be 
alone.” 

Lastly, remark the humility of this loneliness. Had the 
Son of Man simply said, I can be alone, He would have 
said no more than any proud, self-relying man can say; but 
when He added, ‘‘ because the Father is with me,’ that 
independence assumed another character, and self-reliance 
became only another form of reliance upon God. Distin- 
guish between genuine and spurious humility. There is a 
false humility which says, “It is my own poor thought, and 


- 


252 FREDERICK W. ROBERTSON. 


I must not trust it. I must distrust my own reason and 
judgment, because they are my own. I must not accept 
the dictates of my own conscience; for is it not my own, and 
is not trust in self the great fault of our fallen nature ?”’ 

Very well. . Now, remember something else. ‘There is a 
Spirit which beareth witness with our spirits; there is a 
God who ‘is not far from any one of us;’ there is a 
“Tight which lighteth every man which cometh into the 
world.” Do not be unnaturally humble. The thought of 
your own mind perchance is the Thought of God. To 
refuse to follow that may be to disown God. To take the 
judgment and conscience of other men to live by, where is 
the humility of that? From whence did their conscience 
and judgment come? Was the fountain from which they 
drew exhausted for you? If they refused like you to rely 
on their own conscience, and you rely upon it, how are you 
sure that it is more the Mind of God than your own which 
you have refused to hear ? 

Look at it in another way. The charm of the words of 
great men—those grand sayings which are recognised as 
true as soon as heard—is this, that you recognise them as 
wisdom which passed across your own mind. You feel that 
they are your own thoughts come back to you, else you 
would not at once admit them: ‘ All that floated across me 
before, only I could not say it, and did not feel confident 
enough to assert it, or had not conviction enough to put 
into words.”’ Yes, God spoke to you what He did to them: 
only they believed it, said it, trusted the Word within them, 
and you did not. Be sure that often when you say, “It is 
only my own poor thought, and Iam alone,” the real cor- 
recting thought is this, ‘‘ Alone, but the Father is with me,” 
—therefore I can live by that lonely conviction. 

There is no danger in this, whatever timid minds may 
think—no danger of mistake, if the character be a true one. 
For we are not in uncertainty in this matter. It has been 





LONELINESS OF CHRIST. 253 


given us to know our base from our noble hours: to distin- 
guish between the voice which is from above, and that which 
speaks from below, out of the abyss of our animal and selfish 
nature. Samuel could distinguish between the impulse 
—quite a human one—which would have made him select 
Hliab out of Jesse’s sons, and the deeper judgment by 
which *‘ the Lord said, Look not on his countenance, nor on 
the height of his stature, for I have refused him.”’ Doubt- 
less deep truth of character is required for this: for the 
whispering voices get mixed together, and we dare not abide 
by our own thoughts, because we think them our own, and 
not God’s: and this because we only now and then endeavor 
to know in earnest. It is only given to the habitually true 
to know the difference. He knew it, because all His blessed 
life long He could say, “My judgment is just, because I 
seek not my own will, but the will of Him which sent me.” 

The practical result and inference of all this is a very 
simple, but a very deep one: the deepest of existence. Let 
life be a life of faith. Do not go timorously about, inquir- 
ing what others think, and what others believe, and what 
others say. It seems the easiest, it is the most difficult 
thing in life to do this—believe in God. God is near you. 
Throw yourself fearlessly upon Him. Trembling mortal, 
there is an unknown might within your soul, which will wake 
when you command it. The day may come when all that 
is human—man and woman—will fall off from you, as they 
did from Him. Let His strength be yours. Be independent 
of them all now. The Father is with you. Look to Hin, 
and He will save you. 


XVI. 
IMPROVEMENT OF TIME. 


Hitt. 

[Quaint RowLanp Hrtu! honest, untiring in gospel zeal, yet 
abounding in an eccentric humor that either offended or conquered 
the hearts of all who heard him; in figure so noble and commanding, 
that, even when almost fourscore and ten, his congregation were used 
to say, ‘It does us good if we can only see him!” This founder of 
the noted Surrey Chapel, London, was the son of Sir R. Hill, and was 
born at Hawkstone, Shropshire, August 23d 1744. He graduated at 
St. John’s College, Cambridge, and was ordained deacon in the 
Church of England. Yet he soon became a devoted and able disciple 
of Whitefield. For fifty winters he ministered to his great London 
congregation, and gave his summers to itinerant preaching, closing» 
his labors only with his life, April 11th 1833. His ‘ Village Dia- 
logues,’”’ a defence of Christian doctrine in a series of attractive con- 
versations, were widely popular. He lived a whole-souled evangelist. 
Sheridan said of him: “ His ideas come red-hot from the heart.” The 
following Sermon, reported as delivered, was preached in Surrey 
Chapel on his last New Year's Day on earth. It attests his devout- 
ness and earnestness of spirit, despite the infirmities of his eighty- 
ninth year. | 


“This month shall be unto you the beginning of months ; it shall be 
the first month of the year to you.”’—Exodus xii. 2. 


BRETHREN, time passes very quickly. We are now be- 
ginning a new year—which of us will be alive when the year 
is concluded? Many of my friends have been swept away 
by the scythe of time into eternity since this time twelve 
months; and there is one standing among you now who 
does not expect to see this year out. The days of my pil- 
grimage must be nearly ended. Dear brethren, do let me 
offer a few hints another time for your eternal good. I 
dread the thought of having the sun set, in my poor little 


way, in a manner that is inconsistent with former mercies. 
(254) 


IMPROVEMENT OF TIME. 255 


Oh, it is beautiful to see the setting sun on a summer’s day— 
though the rays are faint, yet they are still bright and clear. 
So while the rays of my poor abilities begin to get very 
feeble, God can still give a light to them—I pray that he 
may be a light and life to your ce 

Now, what have we here in the text? Why, that which 
may instruct us all. The words, perhaps, may not strike 
you as being very appropriate, but they will be a good start- 
ing-post for me, perhaps, and instruct me to speak profitably 
upon more things than one. 

There is no good done to the souls of men, but as divine 
knowledge is communicated to our hearts through Him who 
is the fountain of all knowledge and all wisdom whatsoever. 
What is a man without an understanding? And what is 
that understanding, unless the Lord give light to the under- 
standing? How beautiful is that prayer which you some- 
times offer, that ‘the eyes of your understanding being 
enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of his call- 
ing, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in 
the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power 
to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his 
mighty power.” 

But we must not only have a door-way into the mind, by 
the medium of the understanding—but when we get into 
the mind, the great matter is, to bring God to you. Lord, . 
grant that we may never come to the house of God without 
humbly waiting on God, in order that we may receive the 
food of his house. How miserably off is that man who calls 
at a house where is plenty of food, and where he is permit- 
ted to take what he pleases, and still prefers joining with 
them who are under the penalty of starvation! Oh, that 
the Lord would give me food for you; and oh, that the Lord 
would give you appetites to eat it! 

The Lord was determined to take a people to himself, 
according to his own wisdom, and to bring them to the pro- 


256 ROWLAND HILL. 


mised land, where he was to instruct them in things that 
were figurative for the day, having “a shadow of good 
things to come,” (we have the happiness to enjoy these 
things more plainly) by different types, and ceremonies, and 
sacrifices. Now the day at length approaches when Israel 
is to be delivered, by the outstretched arm of Omnipotence 
itself, from the bonds of their Egyptian taskmasters and 
tyrants. ‘The day approaches and the work must be done, 
because God determined it should be done. What a mercy 
it is that God’s determinations must be accomplished! Let 
me know his will, let me ask to have that will engraven upon 
my heart; and, as sure as God is omnipotent, so shall I 
have that glorious will of his accomplished upon me for my 
everlasting good. I wish I could lift up my heart more 
abundantly to Him who is the author of omnipotent power, 
when I make use of that but one expression in the Lord’s 
Prayer, ‘‘ Thy will be done.”” And, blessed be his name, 
what a glorious promise is that, ‘I will give them a heart to 
know me, that I am the Lord:” I have given them minds, 
and I will feed and direct those minds for their good; and 
their minds shall be directed according to my holy mind and 
will. So that there shall be a happy communication be- 
tween unworthy sinners that seek him, and God that gives 
them to understand. 

Well, he gave the children of Israel divers ordinances ; 
and the first grand institution God points out before us this 
morning, namely, that of the passover, the account of which 
we have in this chapter. We are certain that the Gospel 
was meant in all that institution, when we are told that 
‘‘Christ our passover is sacrificed for us.”” Not one drop 
of blood was ever shed from any of the animals that were 
sacrificed in ancient times, but all pointed beautifully to the 
dear Lamb of God who came into the world, and took away 
sin by the sacrifice of himself. All of them went to pre- 
figure the glorious days when the fullness of the time shall 





IMPROVEMENT OF TIME. 257 


come, when all these typical representations shall be really 
and gloriously exemplified. I met with a person the other 
day who thought there could be no use in common people 
reading the account of the Levitical institutions; I trust 
you are all convinced that those institutions were the Gospel 
of the Old Testament dispensation, and were all typical of 
the Lamb of God, who was to come in the fullness of time— 
oh, it is a fine expression,—to “put away sin by the sacri- 
fice of himself.” Oh, thanks be to God for the redemption ! 
My debts are all discharged! I love to represent Christ to 
you in the way of a substituted surety; he paid the debts 
for me. I remember once myself being a considerable suf- 
ferer by being a surety for a debtor. In such a case they 
come on you the same as if you had contracted the debt, 
though you did not contract a farthing of it. So the Lord 
comes on us to demand payment of the law; then the Lord 
Jesus, our beloved surety, comes in: “I have paid thy 
debts—I have suffered thy penalty—I died;” what a fine 
reason that is! ‘the just for the unjust, that I might bring 
you to God.”” Qh, the latter part of the business is charm- 
ing; we are to be brought to God through Jesus Christ, 
being renewed in the spirit of our minds. 

Wherever redemption through Christ is not preached 
fully, and freely, and distinctively, to the hearts of men, we 
_ never find a blessing upon the preached word. How dare I 
come, with all my imperfections about me, to a God of infi- 
nite holiness and purity? But now, all my sins are buried 
in the grave of Christ. Yes, and I may look upon the glo- 
rious voice which revivified the body of Christ, when he was 
raised from the dead by the power of the Father (as well as 
by his own power too, for he had “ power to lay down his 
life,” and he had “ power to take it again,”’) as a proof of 
my resurrection to everlasting life. ‘‘ He that believeth on 
me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever 
liveth, and believeth in me, shall never die.’”’ And as a © 

9 R 


258 ROWLAND HILL. 


sweet pledge of the certainty of my resurrection, what did 
he do for his people? He blessed them with a spiritual 
resurrection: “‘ And you hath he quickened who were dead 
in trespasses and in sins.’’ The vivifying grace of Christ 
in the soul is an earnest of that second, glorious resurrec- 
tion in Christ, when body and soul shall be reunited, when 
we shall see our Redeemer as he is, know as we are known, 
and ‘‘be for ever with the Lord.” 

Now, what was ordered to be done by the Israelites in 
this chapter? Why here we are told of the lamb that was 
to be slain, the paschal lamb in the time of the passover. 
It was the first of all the ordinances that God ordained in 
the Jewish church, it was to be with them the beginning of 
the year. My dear brethren, we never begin to live till we 
live to God. JI remember once seeing an old man, I sup- 
pose he must have been seventy or eighty years of age; and 
I asked him how old he was. He looked at me—he was 
brought to me as a monument of mercy,—he looked at me 
for a time, and faltered in his voice, the tears trickling down 
his cheeks; says he, ‘‘I am two years old.” ‘Two years 
old?” ‘Ah, sir,” says he, ‘till a little time ago I lived 
the life of a dead man; and I never knew what life was till 
I met with the life which is ‘ hid with Christ in God.’”’ Oh, 
it is a glorious truth ; we have a life in God. And we may 
further add, “‘ When Christ’’ (that is a fine idea—God en- 
grave it on my heart!) ‘‘ When Christ, who is our life (that 
he is) shall appear, then shall we also’ —Oh what miracles 
of mercy shall we be !—‘‘ then shall we also appear with him 
in glory.” 

There is a number of fine mysteries connected with this 
lamb’s being offered. It was to be the night of their deli- 
verance: then began their day of happiness and deliver- 
ance: and there were ceremonies appointed which are very 
significant to us in this present day. They were to eat the 
paschal lamb with their staff in their hand, with their shoes 





IMPROVEMENT OF TIME. 259 


on their feet, and with their loins girded. God give us the 
staff of promise, with which we may fight our enemies. No- 
thing in the world repels the enemy's temptations so well as 
when we can fasten on a good promise, and set it against 
the devil’s malice against our precious souls. 

They were to have their shoes on their feet, so that they 
might be ready to march immediately. God be praised, 
Christians are not to have one single idle hour. Be always 
ready, morning, noon, and night; that, if you are awakened 
out of your sleep by the coming of the Lord, you may be 
ready to say, ‘Here I am, Lord, prepared to meet you.” 
May sloth be gone, and may we be filled with that activity 
and sacred zeal which shall bring us safe through all our 
labors. 7 

They were also to have their “loins girded.” We are 
told of the girdle of truth—of the loins being “ girt about 
with truth.’’ I have seen poor men when at hard labor 
with a girdle about their loins by way of strengthening them. 
“Gird up the loins of your mind,” says the apostle; ‘‘be 
sober, and hope to the end.”’ Be always ready for the work 
whenever you may be called to it. Oh, this is a good word 
for any part of our sermon—as it is good for the beginning 
of our life, so it will be while we continue and go on with 
our days. ‘Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, 
unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord’”’—can 
any one of you get beyond the lovely practice of that one 
thing ?—“‘ forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain 
in the Lord.” Hence it is that we are beautifully instructed 
to understand religion to be a persevering work: ‘So run 
that ye may obtain.””’ What a mercy it is when we are 
_ kept watching and praying that we enter not into tempta- 
tion ! 

I thank God the Bible is a very practical book. Though 
I know there are a great number of things beyond my own 
power of obtaining them, yet the promises are brought 


260 ROWLAND HILL. 


sweetly to my mind when I go to Him for strength who 
alone gives it me to perform duties. Oh, those beautiful 
expressions of the Apostle Paul!—I fear not the language 
of the commandment when the language of the promise is so 
rich and free.—‘* Work out your own salvation.” Who 
can do it for you? I pray God he may help you; but if 
you don’t help yourselves it will be in vain. I don’t doubt 
this will sound a little comical in the ears of some. God 
helps them who help themselves: God gives strength to 
work, and man works by the strength which God gives him. 
‘Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling ;’ 
and then directly I have the promise, and a glorious pro- 
mise it.is. If ten thousand angels had put all their strength 
together, they could not have given me a promise of equal 
value. ‘ Work out your own salvation with fear and trem- 
bling. For it is God which worketh in you’’—he that 
gives strength to all his bright seraphs above will give you 
strength—“ to will and to do of his good pleasure.” He gives 
a will by the breath of omnipotence, and then we see the 
activity of real Christians when the activity of God is in 
them, when the Spirit of the Lord is said to work in them 
mightily, when they are ‘strengthened with all might by 
his Spirit in the inner man.” Dear brethren, I wish to 
have stronger faith in these strong promises of God. In- 
deed they are large promises, such as nobody could ever 
have dared to expect if he had not enabled believers to per- . 
form the same by the power of his mighty Spirit. I want 
no other evidence of the truth of these things, my dear 
brethren, than the life and conversation of you that truly 
believe in the Lord Jesus, you who, by your walk and be- 
havior, are lights to the world. See what grace does when 
it reigns in the heart, and how you become more than con- 
querors over all your corruptions. 

There was not only to be the staff of profession in their 
hand, and their feet shod with the preparation of the gospel 


IMPROVEMENT OF TIME. 261 


of peace; but they were to be ready to march immediately 
the Lord sent them out to work. Here it is to be further 
observed, that directly the commandment was given, they 
were said to obey it; they had no time to hesitate, and 
there was no time to lose: their loins were girt, their staff 
was in their hands, and they were ready to go. 

They were to suffer no leaven to be in their houses at the 
time they celebrated the passover. You know what leaven 
means; the leaven of malice and wickedness, the swelling 
pride of the human heart, and the abominable evils that are 
produced thereby. No unclean thing was to be eaten by 
them: not that any outward uncleanness will make us in- 
wardly unclean: thanks be to God that he has ordered it 
that that which was the duty of the Jews is no longer our 
duty. But at the same time I thank my God for that charm- 
ing command—there is no command but, if we obey it, will 
be charming,—‘‘ Come out from among them, and be ye 
separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing.”’ 
No unclean thing was to be touched or eaten by the Jews of 
old. We should so hate sin that we will not touch it. Who 
in the world would like to touch a filthy carcass if he could 
keep away from it? 

These are some of the particulars connected with the 
manner in which the Jews were commanded to eat the 
passover. There are other things respecting it, on which 
we may observe. It was to be a lamb of the first year. 
Christ died in the beginning of the prime of his life. Christ 
suffered himself to be bound by the law’s curse; he received 
the curse “the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to 
God.” What a day was that when all the sins of God’s 
people were laid upon the Lord Jesus Christ! Sometimes 
we sing, 

“The Lord, in the day 


Of his anger, did lay 
Our sins on the Lamb, and he bore them away.” 


262 ROWLAND FILL. 


He bore them away into the land of eternal forgetfulness. 
“Thy sins and thy iniquities,’’ said the God of love, ‘ will 


I remember no more.’’ Now and then you and I have a . 


person who has offended us; and we find that if they repent 
we can forgive them through the grace of God, when all that 
is angry and bad is subdued by the contrary-spirit: but we 
cannot say—I cannot, at least, and I dare say you cannot, 
that we entirely forget it; to say that we remember no more, 
is more than we can do. Now, God’s promise is even to 
forget our sins; he will bury them in the grave of Christ, 
and they are never to appear any more against us. 

It should be, moreover, further observed, that this lamb 
that was to be slain, when slaughtered was not to be divided. 
God give me an undivided good. ‘There are some people 
talk about the atonement of Christ, and don’t like to talk 
about the influence of the Holy Spirit to sanctify and purify 
the heart. If I preach one sermon on justification, I would 
at least preach another on sanctification. If I tell people 
how God has freely forgiven them, so I will tell them of his 
grace working righteousness in the heart; it has wrought 
out not only righteousness for me, but it works righteous- 
ness in me, and makes me righteous. Don’t let us forget 
that fine doctrine. He is just as willing to give his grace 
for the purifying our hearts, as he was free to give us of his 
blood for the justification of our persons. If ever we preach 
the gospel in a sort of partial manner, without giving equal 
weight to both parts of divine truth, we do injury to the 
souls of men. There is not an hour in my life in which I 
need not view “the Lamb of God which taketh away the 
sins of the world.” I cannot spend a single day upon the 
earth, but I am compelled to ery out, 


‘** Open, O Lord, for this day’s sins, 
The fountain of thy blood.” 


But still I want his Holy Spirit, that I may sin less, love 
him more, obey and serve him better, and live more to his 


a 


IMPROVEMENT OF TIHE. 263 


glory and praise. Don’t be partial in your believing: re- 
member that all the doctrines are equally valuable. Not a 
bone of this sacrifice was ever to be broken; it was to be 
eaten whole. So may you and I fix on the Lamb of God 
as one complete and whole salvation without dividing part 
from part. [remember a very pretty remark a child made, 
when asked a rather improper question: “‘ Which do you 
love best, your father or your mother?’ The poor little 
child did not know what to answer: for a while, he did 
not know what to answer: he looked first at one, and 
then at the other; and at last the poor little creature 
cried out, “I love them both best.” So I would have you 
love justification by the blood of Christ, to feel his holy 
righteousness which he has given you, equally with his sanc- 
tification whereby you are able to live to God. If I have 

been convinced by the power of the Holy Ghost, sin will be 
; my plague and grief all the days of my life. If God him- 
self were to tell me to be happy without being holy, I could 
not be so: it would be impossible to be content with pardon 
without purification, and being among the blessed number 
of those who are ‘pure in heart.’’ I never wish you to 
have the consolations of religion without having the sancti- 
fying influences of it, and without finding that your happi- 
ness is increased as your holiness is increased. You need 
not be afraid, according to the cant of some bad professors, 
of being legal; for the more holy you are, the more you 
will feel yourselves indebted to Him who has made you holy; 
and the more you will acknowledge your obligations to that 
God who has carried on his work of grace with power in 
your souls, and who has promised never to leave you till he 
brings you to his everlasting glory. 

Then we find how the lamb was to be eaten. It was to 
be eaten by families, and to be “roast with fire.” Oh, my 
God, what did our Redeemer feel, when, if I may so ex- 
press myself, resting under his Father’s wrath, he cried out 


264 ROWLAND HILL. 


in the agonies of his soul, ‘‘ Father, if it be possible, let 
this cup pass from me!’’ and when “his sweat was as it were 
great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” I do 
like that prayer; ‘ By thine agony and bloody sweat, Good 
Lord deliver us.” O that I may learn to be crucified with 
Christ! O that I may learn to have all my sins mortified 
through his mortification, and live to his glory and his 
praise. 

This great work was to be done for and in the children of 
Israel, and it was done for them; and it will be wrought in 
all them that believe in the Lord Jesus. Pray, my dear 
brethren, what is life? It is a wonderful emanation from 
God himself. Why is it I have not the life of a beast? I 
don’t know but what human life is of the same nature, in 
regard to the mere point of life, as is the life of any 
other animal: but there is a glorious difference in this 
respect; it is a life which is filled with mind, and in that 
life I can climb to God himself. And when the Lord is 
pleased to vivify my dead soul, to reanimate me from the 
grave of sin, to make me ‘“‘a new creature in Christ Jesus,” 
to give me a new nature; when all these pretty texts are 
brought home to the heart, and I know their meaning by 
feeling their power, then I know that my life is worth a 
thousand worlds. It is “hid with Christ in God.” Christ 
is my life in time, and he will permit me to be with him in 
the mansions of eternity. Oh what a mercy it is to feel 
that we have a present life, a spiritual life, in order that we 
may rise to live with God for ever. ‘And you hath he 
quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins.”” “TI live,”’ 
saith the apostle, “‘ yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and 
the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the 
Son of God.” Dear brethren, is it not a happiness to have 
all these powers communicated to us, through the gospel of 
our Redeemer, whereby we may live to his praise, and be for 
ever with the Lord? 


IMPROVEMENT OF TIME. 265 


But there is one thing which must not be forgotten. This 
Lamb that was to be slain was to have its blood sprinkled 
on the door-posts of the house, and on the lintel; but not 
upon the threshold. We are not to trample on the blood of 
Christ; but we are to look at it as a security from that 
death and condemnation which we as sinners deserve before 
God. When the destroying angel came to a house, and saw 
the blood sprinkled there, not an Israelite’s child was to be 
smitten; while the children of the Egyptians were sure to 
lose their offspring as an instance of the vengeance of God. 

Now, my dear brethren, do pray the Lord to make this 
part of the sermon profitable. Do remember that, precious 
as the blood of the Lamb is, it never will secure you, unless 
it be sprinkled on the door-posts of your heart; it never 
will avail unless applied. That is the grand work of faith: 
faith not only believes that Christ died for sinners, but faith 
goes more particularly to the application of it to the mind. 
I may hear of a rich man who has paid the debts of many 
people; but unless he has paid mine, his generosity to others 
is of no value to me. I want to know that all my debts are 
pardoned, and to have the certainty of it by the sanctifying 
influence of the Holy Spirit possessing my soul. 

May the Lord bless these imperfect hints, for his name’s 
sake. Amen. 


XWvel lg 


WRATH UPON THE WICKED TO THE 
UTTERMOST. 


EDWARDS. 


(‘I consider JonatHan Epwarps the greatest of the sons of men. 
He ranks with the brightest luminaries of the Christian Church, not 
excluding any country or any age since the apostolic:” such is the 
tribute paid by the eminent Robert Hall to one of America’s ablest 
divines and metaphysicians. Jonathan Edwards was born October 
5th 1703, at Windsor, Connecticut, where his father ministered for 
sixty years. As a child, he was a scholar and logician. He gra- 
duated from Yale College at seventeen, was licensed to preach two 
years later, and in 1727 was installed in the Presbyterian Church, 
Northampton. His pastorate of twenty-four years, at first blessed by 
a thrilling revival of religion, ended in his expulsion by his congre- 
gation. His offences were too faithful rebukes of the sins of his peo- 
ple, and the exclusion of sinners from the Lord’s Supper. Six years 
of his life were now given to miserably paid missionary labors among 
the Indians at Stockbridge, Massachusetts. These were made memo- 
rable by the writing of his ‘‘ Freedom of the Will,” at least the peer 
of his ‘‘ Religious Affections.’”’? He was rewarded by the presidency 
of Princeton College, but died a few months after of small-pox, March 
22d 1758. His last words were: ‘Trust in God, and ye need not 
fear.’ His most powerful Sermons appeal to the conscience by the 
terrors of condemnation awaiting the unregenerate. | 


“To fill up their sins alway; for the wrath is come upon them to the 
uttermost.’’—1 Thess. ii. 16. 


In verse 14 the apostle commends the Christian Thessalo- 
nians that they became the followers of the churches of God 
in Judea, both in faith and in sufferings; in fazth, in that 
they received the word, not as the word of man, but as it is 
in truth the word of God: in sufferings, in that they had 
suffered like things of their own countrymen, as they had of 
the Jews. Upon which the apostle sets forth the persecuting, 

(266) 





7 oy 
if niulhas ras Warn 
C 








WRATH UPON THE WICKED TO THE UTTERMOST. 267 


cruel, and perverse wickedness of that people, ‘‘who both 
killed the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and have,” 
says he, “persecuted us; and they please not God, and are 
contrary to all men, forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles, 
that they might be saved.”” Then come in the words of the 
text; “To fill up their sins alway; for the wrath is come 
upon them to the uttermost.”’ 3 

In these words we may observe two things: 

1. To what effect was the heinous wickedness and obsti- 
nacy of the Jews, viz. to fill up thew sins. God hath set 
bounds to every man’s wickedness; he suffers men to live, 
and to go on in sin, till they have filled up their measure, 
and then cuts them off. ‘To this effect was the wickedness 
and obstinacy of the Jews: they were exceedingly wicked, 
and thereby filled up the measure of their sins a great pace. 
And the reason why they were permitted to be so obstinate 
under the preaching and miracles of Christ, and of the 
apostles, and under all the means used with them, was that 
they might fill up the measure of their sins. This is agreea- 
ble to what Christ said, Matt. xxii. 31, 32. ‘ Wherefore ye 
be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of 
them which killed the prophets. Fill ye up then the mea- 
sure of your fathers.” 

2. The punishment of their wickedness: ‘‘The wrath is 
come upon them to the uttermost.” There is a connection 
between the measure of men’s sin, and the measure of 
punishment. When they have filled up the measure of their 
sin, then is filled up the measure of God’s wrath. 

The degree of their punishment, is the uttermost degree. 
This may respect both a national and personal punishment. 
If we take it as a national punishment, a little after the 
time when the epistle was written, wrath came upon the 
nation of the Jews to the uttermost, in their terrible de- 
struction by the Romans; when, as Christ said, “was great 
tribulation, such as never was since the beginning of the 
world to that time,” Matt. xxiy. 21. That nation had before 


268 JONATHAN EDWARDS. 


suffered many of the fruits of divine wrath for their sins; 
but this was beyond all, this was their highest degree of 
punishment as a nation. If we take it as a personal punish- 
ment, then it respects their punishment in hell. God often 
punishes men very dreadfully in this world; but in hell 
‘wrath comes on them to the wttermost.’’ By this expres- 
sion.is also denoted the certainty of this punishment. For 
though the punishment was then future, yet it is spoken of 
as present: “The wrath zs come upon them to the utter- 
most.” It was as certain as if it had already taken place. 
God, who knows all things, speaks of things that are not as 
though they were; for things present and things future are 
equally certain with him. It also denotes the near approach 
of it. Zhe wrath is come; i. e. it is Just at hand; it is at the 
door; as it proved with respect to that nation; their terrible 
destruction by the Romans was soon after the apostle wrote 
this epistle. 

DocrringE. When those that continue in sin shall have 
filled up the measure of their sin, then wrath will come upon 
them to the uttermost. | 

I. There is a certain measure that God hath set to the 
sin of every wicked man. God says concerning the sin of — 
man, as he says to the raging waves of the sea, Hitherto 
shalt thou come, and no further. The measure of some is 
much greater than of others. Some reprobates commit but 
a little sin in comparison with others, and so are to endure 
proportionably a smaller punishment. There are many 
vessels of wrath; but some are smaller, and others greater 
vessels; some will contain comparatively but little wrath, 
others a greater measure of it. Sometimes, when we see 
men go to dreadful lengths, and. become very heinously 
wicked, we are ready to wonder that God lets them alone. 
He sees them go on in such audacious wickedness, and keeps 
silence, nor does anything to interrupt them, but they go 
smoothly on, and meet with no hurt. But sometimes the 





WRATH UPON THE WICKED TO THE UTTERMOST. 269 


reason why God lets them alone is, because they have not 
_ filled up the measure of their sins. When they live in dread- 
ful wickedness, they are but filling up the measure which 
God hath limited for them. ‘This is sometimes the reason 
why God suffers very wicked men to live so long; because 
their iniquity is not full: Gen. xv. 16. “The iniquity of 
the Amorites is not yet full.” For this reason also God 
sometimes suffers them to live in prosperity. Their prosperity 
is a snare to them, and an occasion of their sinning a great 
deal more. Wherefore God suffers them to have such a 
snare, because he suffers them to fill up a larger measure. 
So, for this cause, he sometimes suffers them to live under 
great light, and great means and advantages, at the same 
time to neglect and misimprove all. Every one shall live 
till he hath filled up his measure. 

II. While men continue in sin, they are filling the mea- 
sure set them. ‘This is the work in which they spend their 
whole lives; they begin in their childhood; and, if they 
live to grow old in sin, they still go on with this work. It 
is the work with which every day is filled up. They may 
alter. their business in other respects; they may sometimes 
be about one thing, and sometimes about another; but they 
never change from this work of filling up the measure of 
their sins. Whatever they put their hands to, they are still 
employed in this work. This is the first thing that they set 
_ themselves about when they awake in the morning, and the 
last thing they do at night. They are all the while trea- 
suring up wrath against the day of wrath, and the revelation 
of the righteous judgment of God. It is a gross mistake 
of some natural men, who think that when they read and 
pray, they do not add to their sins; but, on the contrary, 
think they diminish their guilt by these exercises. They 
think, that instead of adding to their sins, they do something 
to satisfy for their past offences; but, instead of that, they 


270 JONATHAN EDWARDS. 


do but add to the measure by their best prayers, and by 
those services with which they themselves are most pleased. 

III. When once the measure of their sins is filled up, then 
wrath will come upon them to the uttermost. God will then 
wait no longer upon them. Wicked men think that God is 
altogether such an one as themselves, because, when they 
commit such wickedness, he keeps silence. ‘‘ Because judg- 
ment against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore 
the heart of the children of men is fully set in them to do 
evil.” But when once they shall have filled up the measure 
of their sins, judgment will be executed; God will not bear 
with them any longer. Now is the day of grace, and the 
day of patience, which they spend in filling up their sins; 
but when their sins shall be full, then will come the day of 
wrath, the day of the fierce anger of God.—God often 
executes his wrath on ungodly men in a less degree, in this 
world. He sometimes brings afflictions upon them, and that 
in wrath. Sometimes he expresses his wrath in very sore 
judgments ; sometimes he appears in a terrible manner, not 
only outwardly, but also in the inward expressions of it on 
their consciences. Some, before they died, have had the wrath 
of God inflicted on their souls in degrees that have been 
intolerable. But these things are only forerunners of their 
punishment, only slight foretastes of wrath. God never 
stirs up all his wrath against wicked men while in this world ; 
but when once wicked men shall have filled up the measure 
of their sins, then wrath will come upon them to the utter- 
most; and that in the following respects: 

1. Wrath will come upon them without any restraint or 
moderation in the degree of it. God doth always lay, as it 
were, a restraint upon himself; he doth not stir up his 
wrath ; he stays his rough wind in the day of his east wind ; 
he lets not his arm light down on wicked men with its full 
weight. But when sinners shall have filled up the measure 
of their sins, there will be no caution, no restraint. His 


WRATH UPON THE WICKED TO THE UTTERMOST. 271 


rough wind will not be stayed nor moderated. The wrath 
of God will be poured out like fire. He will come forth, 
not only in anger, but in the fierceness of his anger; he will 
execute wrath with power, so as to show what his wrath is, 
and make his power known. There will be nothing to alle- 
viate his wrath; his heavy wrath will lie on them, without 
anything to lighten the burthen, or to keep off, in any 
measure, the full weight of it from pressing the soul. His 
eye will not spare, neither will he regard the sinner’s cries 
and lamentations, however loud and bitter. Then shall 
wicked men know that God is the Lord; they shall know 
how great that majesty is which they have despised, and 
how dreadful that threatened wrath is which they have so 
little regarded. Then shall come on wicked men that 
punishment which they deserve. God will exact of them 
the uttermost farthing. Their iniquities are marked before 
him; they are all written in his book; and in the future 
world he will reckon with them, and they must pay all the 
debt. Their sins are laid up in store with God; they are 
sealed up among his treasures; and them he will recom- 
pense, even recompense into their bosoms. The consummate 
degree of punishment will not be executed till the day of 
judgment; but the wicked are sealed over to this consum- 
mate punishment immediately- after death; they are cast 
into hell, and there bound in chains of darkness to the judg- 
ment of the great day; and they know that the highest 
degree of punishment is coming upon them. Final wrath 
will be executed without any mixture; all mercy, all enjoy- 
ments will be taken away. God sometimes expresses his 
wrath in this world; but here good things and evil are 
mixed together ; in the future there will be only evil things. 

2. Wrath will then be executed without any merciful 
circumstances. The judgments which God executes on 
ungodly men in this world, are attended with many merciful 
circumstances. There is much patience and long-suffering, 


gia JONATHAN EDWARDS, 


together with judgment; judgments are joined with con- 
tinuance of opportunity to seek mercy. But in hell there 
will be no more exercises of divine patience. The judgments 
which God exercises on ungodly men in this world are warn- 
ings to them to avoid greater punishments; but the wrath 
which will come upon them, when they shall have filled up 
the measure of their sin, will not be of the nature of warn- 
ings. Indeed they will be effectually awakened, and made 
thoroughly sensible, by what they shall suffer; yet their 
being awakened and made sensible will do them no good. 
Many a wicked man hath suffered very awful things from 
God in this world, which have been a means of saving good; 
but that wrath which sinners shall suffer after death will be 
no way for their good. God will have no merciful design in 
it; neither will it be possible that they should get any good 
by that or by anything else. 

3. Wrath will so be executed as to perfect the work to 
which wrath tends, viz., utterly to undo the subject of it. 
Wrath is often so executed in this life as greatly to distress 
persons, and bring them into great calamity; yet not so as 
to complete the ruin of those who suffer it; but in another 
world it will be so executed as to finish their destruction, 
and render them utterly and perfectly undone; it will take 
away all comfort, all hope, and: all support. The soul will 
be, as it were, utterly crushed; the wrath will be wholly 
intolerable. It must sink, and will utterly sink, and will 
have no more strength to keep itself from sinking than a 
worm would have to keep itself from being crushed under 
the weight of a mountain. The wrath will be so great, so 
mighty and powerful, as wholly to abolish all manner of 
welfare: Matt. xxi. 44. “‘ But on whomsoever it shall fall, 
it will grind him to powder.” 

4. When persons shall have filled up the measure of their 
sin, that wrath will come upon them which is eternal. 
Though men may suffer very terrible and awful judgments 


WRATH UPON THE WICKED TO THE UTTERMNOST. 273 


in this world, yet those judgments have an end. They may 
be long continued, yet they commonly admit of relief. 
Temporal distresses and sorrows have intermissions and 
respite, and commonly by degrees abate and wear off; but 
the wrath that shall be executed, when the measure of sin 
shall have been filled up, will have no end. ‘Thus it will be 
to the uttermost as to its duration; it will be of so long 
- continuance that it will be impossible it should be longer. 
Nothing can be longer than eternity. 

5. When persons shall. have filled up the measure of their 
sin, then wrath will come upon them to the uttermost of 
what is threatened. Sin is an infinite evil; and the punish- 
ment which God hath threatened against it is very dreadful. 
The threatenings of God against the workers of iniquity 
are very awful; but these threatenings are never fully ac- 
complished in this world. However dreadful things some 
men may suffer in this life, yet God never fully executes his 
threatenings for so much as one sin, till they have filled up 
the whole measure. The threatenings of the law are never 
answered by anything that any man suffers here. The most 
awful judgment in this life doth not answer God’s threaten- 
ings, either in degree, or in circumstances, or in duration. 
If the greatest sufferings that ever are endured in this life 
should be eternal, it would not answer the threatening. 
Indeed temporal judgments belong to the threatenings of the 
law; but these are not answered by them; they are but 
foretastes of the punishment. ‘The wages of sin is death.” 
No expressions of wrath that are suffered before men have 
filled up the measure of their sin, are its full wages. But 
_ then God will reckon with them, and will recompense into 
their bosoms the full deserved sum. 


The use I would make of this doctrine is, of warning to 
natural men to rest no longer in sin, and to make haste to 
flee from it. The things which have been said, under this 

s 


274 JONATHAN EDWARDS. 


doctrine, may well be awakening, awful considerations to 
you. It is awful to consider whose wrath it is that abides 
upon you, and of what wrath you are in danger. It is 
impossible to express the misery of a natural condition. It 
is like being in Sodom, with a dreadful storm of fire and 
brimstone hanging over it, just ready to break forth, and to 
be poured down upon it. The clouds of divine vengeance 
are full and just ready to burst. Here let those who yet . 
continue in sin, in this town, consider particularly : 

1. Under what great means and advantages you continue 
in sin. God is now favoring us with very great and extra- 
ordinary means and advantages, in that we have such 
extraordinary tokens of the presence of God among us; his 
spirit is so remarkably poured out, and multitudes of all 
ages and all sorts are converted and brought home to 
Christ. God appears among us in the most extraordinary 
manner, perhaps, that ever he did in New England. The 
children of Israel saw many mighty works of God when he 
brought them out of Egypt; but we, at this day, see works 
more mighty, and of a more glorious nature. 

We, who live under such light, have had loud calls; but 
now, above all. Now is a day of salvation. The fountain 
hath been set open among us in an extraordinary manner, 
and hath stood open for a considerable time: Yet you con- 
tinue in sin, and the calls that you have hitherto had, have 
not brought you to be washed in it. What extraordinary 
advantages have you lately enjoyed, to stir you up! How 
hath everything in the town, of late, been of that tendency ! 
Those things which used to be the greatest hindrances have 
been removed. You have not the ill examples of immoral 
persons to be a temptation to you. There is not now that 
vain worldly talk and ill company to divert you, and to be 
a hindrance to you, which there used to be. Now you 
have multitudes of good examples set before you; there are 
many now all around you who, instead of diverting and 


WRATH UPON THE WICKED TO THE UTTERMOST. 275 


hindering you, are earnestly desirous of your salvation, and 
willing to do all that they can to move you to flee to Christ : 
they have a thirsting desire for it. The chief talk in the 
town has of late been about the things of religion, and has 
been such as hath tended to promote, and not to hinder, 
your souls’ good. Everything all around you hath tended 
to stir you up; and will you yet continue in sin! 

Some of you have continued in sin till you are far 
advanced in life. You were warned when you were children ; 
and some of you had awakenings then; however, the time 
went away. You became men and women; and then you 
were stirred up again, you had the strivings of God’s Spirit ; 
and some of you have fixed the times when you would make 
thorough work of seeking salvation. Some of you perhaps 
determined to do it when you should be married and settled 
in the world; others when you should have finished such a 
business, and when your circumstances should be so and so 
altered. Now these times have come and are past, yet you 
continue in sin. 

Many of you have had remarkable warnings of Provi- 
dence. Some of you have been warned by the deaths of 
near relations ; you have stood by and seen others die and 
go into eternity; yet this hath not been effectual. Some 
of you have been near death yourselves, have been brought 
nigh the grave in sore sickness, and were full of your pro- 
mises how you would behave yourselves, if it should please 
God to spare your lives. Some of you have very narrowly 
escaped death by dangerous accidents ; but God was pleased 
to spare you, to give you a further space to repent ; yet you 
continue in sin. 

Some of you have seen times of remarkable outpourings 
of the Spirit of God in this town in times past; but it had 
no good effect on you. Yow had the strivings of the Spirit 
of God too, as well as others. God did not pass so by your 
door, but that he came and knocked; yet you stood it out. 


276 JONATHAN EDWARDS. 


Now God hath come again in a more remarkable manner 
than ever before, and hath been pouring out his Spirit for 
some months in its most gracious influence: yet you remain 
in sin until now. In the beginning of this awakening you 
were warned to flee from wrath, and to forsake your sins. 
You were told what a wide door there was open, what an 
accepted time it was, and were urged to press into the king- 
dom of God. And many did press in; they forsook their 
sins, and believed in Christ; but you, when you had seen i, 
repented not that you might believe him. 

Then you were warned again, and still others have been 
pressing and thronging into the kingdom of God. Many 
have fled for refuge and have laid hold on Christ: yet you 
continue in sin and unbelief. You have seen multitudes of 
all sorts, of all ages, young and old, flocking to Christ, and 
many of about your age and your circumstances; but you 
still are in the same miserable condition in whicl you used 
to be. You have seen persons daily flocking to Christ, as 
doves to their windows. God hath not only poured out his 
Spirit on this town, but also on other towns around us, and 
they are flocking in there as well as here. This blessing 
spreads further and further; many, far and near, seem to 
be setting their faces Zion-ward: yet you who live here, 
where this work first began, continue behind still; you have 
no lot nor portion in this matter. 

2. How dreadful the wrath of God is, when it is executed 
to the uttermost. To make you in some measure sensible 
of that, I desire you to consider whose wrath it is. The 
wrath of a king is the roaring, of a lion; but this is the 
wrath of Jehovah, the Lord God Omnipotent. Let us con- 
sider, what can we rationally think of it? How dreadful 
must be the wrath of such a Being, when it comes upon a 
person to the uttermost, without any pity, or moderation, 
or merciful circumstances! What must be the uttermost of 
his wrath, who made heaven and earth by the word of his 


WRATH UPON THE WICKED TO THE UTTERMOST, 2°77 


power ; who spake, and it was done, who commanded, and it 
stood fast! What must his wrath be, who commandeth the 
sun, and it rises not, and sealeth up the stars! What must 
his wrath be, who shaketh the earth out of its place, and 
causeth the pillars of heaven to tremble! What must his 
wrath be, who rebuketh the sea and maketh it dry, who 
removeth the mountains out of their places, and overturneth 
them in his anger? What must his wrath be, whose majesty 
is so awful that no man could live in the sight of it? 
What must the wrath of such a Being be, when it comes to 
the uttermost, when he makes his majesty appear and shine 
bright in the misery of wicked men? And what is a worm 
of the dust before the fury and under the weight of this 
wrath, which the stoutest devils cannot bear, but utterly 
sink and are crushed under it? Consider how dreadful the 
wrath of God is sometimes in this world, only in a little 
taste or view of it. Sometimes when God only enlightens 
conscience to have some sense of his wrath, it causes the 
stout-hearted to cry out; nature is ready to sink under it, 
when indeed it is but a little glimpse of divine wrath that is 
seen. This hath been observed in many cases. But if a 
slight taste and apprehension of wrath be so dreadful and 
intolerable, what must it be when it comes upon persons to 
the uttermost ? When a few drops or a little sprinkling of 
wrath is so distressing and overbearing to the soul, how 
must it be when God opens the flood-gates and lets the 
mighty deluge of his wrath come pouring down upon men’s 
guilty heads, and brings in all his waves and billows upon 
their souls? How little of God’s wrath will sink them! 
Psalm ii. 12. ‘‘When his wrath is kindled but a little, 
blessed are all they that put their trust in him.” 

3. Consider, you know not what wrath God may be about 
to execute upon wicked men in thzs world. Wrath may, in 
some sense, be coming upon them in the present life, to the 
uttermost, for aught we know. When it is said of the Jews, 


278 JONATHAN EDWARDS. 


‘“‘the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost,’’ respect is 
had, not only to the execution of divine wrath on that 
people in hell, but that terrible destruction of Judea and 
Jerusalem, which was then near approaching, by the Ro- 
mans. We know not but the wrath is now coming, in some 
peculiarly awful manner, on the wicked world. God seems, 
by the things which he is doing among us, to be coming 
forth for some great thing. The work which hath been 
lately wrought among us is no ordinary thing. He doth 
not work in his usual way, but in a way very extraordinary ; 
and it is probable that it is a forerunner of some very great 
revolution. We must not pretend to say what is in the 
womb of Providence, or what is in the book of God’s secret 
decrees; yet we may and ought to discern the signs of these 
times. 

Though God be now about to do glorious things for his 
church and people, yet it is probable that they will be 
accompanied with dreadful things to his enemies. It is the 
manner of God, when he brings about any glorious revolu- 
tion for his people, at the same time to execute very awful 
judgments on his enemies: Deut. xxxii. 48. “ Rejoice, O ye 
nations, with his people; for he will avenge the blood of his 
servants, and will render vengeance to his adversaries, and 
will be merciful unto his land and to his people.”’ Isa. iii. 
10, 11. “Say ye to the righteous, it shall be well with him: 
for they shall eat the fruit of their doings. Woe unto -the 
wicked, it shall be ill with him: for the reward of his hands 
shall be given him.” Isa. lxv. 18, 14. “Therefore, thus 
saith the Lord God, Behold, my servants shall eat, but ye 
shall be hungry: behold, my servants shall drink, but ye 
shall be thirsty; behold, my servants shall rejoice, but ye 
shall be ashamed: behold, my servants shall sing for joy of 
heart, but ye shall cry for sorrow of heart, and shall howl 
for vexation of spirit.’”’ We find in Scripture that where 
glorious times are prophesied to God’s people, there are at 


WRATH UPON THE WICKED TO THE UTTERMOST. 279 


the same time awful judgments foretold to his enemies. 
What God is now about to do, we know not: but this we may 
know, that there will be no safety to any but those who are 
in the ark.—Therefore it behoves all to haste and flee for 
their lives, to get into a safe condition, to get into Christ ; 
then they need not fear, though the earth be removed, and 
the mountains carried into the midst of the sea; though the 
waters thereof roar and be troubled; though the mountains 
shake with the swelling thereof: for God will be their 
refuge and strength; they need not be afraid of evil tidings ; 
their hearts may be fixed, trusting in the Lord. 


ov TT; 
FOOLISHNESS OF THE CROSS CONQUERING. 


CHRYSOSTOM, 

[Joun, surnamed Curysostom— golden-mouthed —from the rare 
beauty of his eloquence, was born at Antioch, a.p. 347. He was 
well taught in rhetoric and philosophy, while his Christian mother led 
him early to Christ. He began preaching at the age of thirty-four, 
and was made Bishop of Constantinople in 397. In that dissolute age 
he knew the truth, dared proclaim it fully as the ambassador of God, 
and spake it with exquisite grace. His attempted reformation of 
abuses excited enmity, and led to repeated banishments. His theology 
was peculiarly spiritual and ethical. In spirit he much resembled the 
Apostle John, as Augustine Paul. He died in banishment in Pontus, 
407. His favorite expression, and the last he uttered, was: “ God 
be praised for everything!’’ Gentleness, godliness, and lips afire 
with heavenly zeal, give Chrysostom the first rank as a preacher of 
Christ Jesus. His Homilies on the New Testament and the Psalms 
are his chiefs works. The following, taken from the “ Library of the 
Fathers,’ was probably delivered at Antioch. } 


“ For the preaching of the Cross is to them that perish foolishness; but 
to us which are saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I 
will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the un- 
derstanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the 
Scribe? ‘Where is the disputer of this world.”’—1 Cor. i. 18-20. 


To the sick and broken-spirited even wholesome meats are 
unpleasant, friends and relations burdensome ; who are often- 
times not even recognised, but are rather accounted in- 
truders. Much like this often is the case of those who are 
perishing in their souls. For the things which tend to sal- 
vation they know not; and those who are careful about 
them they consider to be troublesome. Now this ensues not 
from the nature of the thing, but from their disease. And 


just what the insane do, hating those who take care of 
(280) 





FOOLISHNESS OF THE CROSS CONQUERING. 281 


them, and ever after reviling them, the same is the case 
with unbelievers also. But as in the case of the former, 
they who are insulted then more than ever compassionate 
them, and weep, taking this as the worst symptom of the 
disease in its intense form, when they know not their best 
friends; so also in the case of the Gentiles let us act; yea 
more than for our wives let us wail over them, because they 
know not the common salvation. For not so dearly ought 
aman to love his wife as we should love all mankind, and 
draw them over unto salvation; be a man a Gentile, or be 
he what he may. For these then let us weep; for ‘the 
preaching of the Cross is to them foolishness,’’ being itself 
Wisdom and Power. “For,” saith he, “the preaching of 
the Cross to them that perish is foolishness.”’ 

For since it was likely that they, the Cross being derided 
by the Greeks, would resist and contend by aid of that wis- 
dom, which came (forsooth) of themselves, as being disturbed 
by the expressions of the Greeks; Paul comforting them 
saith, Think it not strange and unaccountable, which is 
taking place. -This is the nature of that which we now 
treat of, to have them that perish fail in acknowledging its 
power. For they are beside themselves, and behave as 
madmen; and so they rail and are disgusted at the medi- 
cines which bring health. 

But what sayest thou, O man? Christ became a slave 
for thee, ‘having taken the form of a slave,’’ and was 
crucified, and rose again. And when thou oughtest to adore 
Him risen for this and admire His loving-kindness; because 
what neither father, nor friend, nor son, did for thee, all 
this the Lord wrought, for thee, the enemy and offender— 
when, I say, thou oughtest to admire Him for these things, 
callest thou that foolishness, which is full of so great wis- 
dom? Well, it is nothing wonderful; for it is a mark of 
them that perish not to recognise the things which lead to 
salvation. Be not troubled therefore, for it is no strange 


282 CHRYSOSTOM. 


nor unaccountable event, that things truly great are mocked 
at by those who are beside themselves. Now such as are in ~ 
this mind you cannot convince by human wisdom. Yea, if 
you want so to convince them, you do but the contrary. 
For the things which transcend reasoning require faith 
alone. Thus, should we set about convincing men by 
reasonings, how God became man, and entered into the 
Virgin’s womb, and not commit the matter unto faith, they 
will but deride the more. Therefore they who inquire by 
reasonings, these are they who perish. 

And why speak I of God? for in regard of created 
things, should we do this, great derision will ensue. For 
suppose a man, wishing to make out all things by reasoning ; 
and let him try by thy discourse to convince himself how 
we see the light; and do thou try to convince him by rea- 
soning. Nay, thou canst not: for if thou sayest that it 
suffices to see by opening the eyes, thou hast not expressed 
the manner, but the fact. For ‘why see we not,’’ one will 
say, ‘by our hearing, and with our eyes hear? And why 
hear we not with the nostril, and with the hearing smell ?” 
If then, he being in doubt about these things, and we unable 
to give the explanation of them, he is to begin laughing, 
shall not we rather laugh him to scorn? “For since both 
have their origin from one brain, since the two members are 
near neighbors to each other, why can they not do the same 
work ?’”? Now we shall not be able to state the cause, nor 
the method of the unspeakable and curious operation; and 
should we make the attempt, we shall be laughed to scorn. 
Wherefore, leaving this unto God’s power ani boundless 
wisdom, let us be silent. 

Just so with regard to the things of God; should we 
desire to explain them by the wisdom which is from without, 
great derision will ensue, not from their infirmity, but from 
the folly of men. For the great things of all no language 
can_explain. 


FOOLISHNESS OF THE CROSS CONQUERING. 283 


Now observe: when I say, “He was crucified;’’ the 
Greek saith, ‘‘ And how can this be reasonable? Himself 
He helped not when undergoing crucifixion and sore trial at 
the moment of the Cross: how then after these things did 
He rise again and help others? For if He had been able, 
before death- was the proper time.” (For this the Jews 
actually said.) ‘But He who helped not himself, how 
helped He others? There is no reason in it,” saith he. 
True, O man, for indeed it is above reason; and unspeaka- 
ble is the power of the Cross. For that being actually in 
the midst of horrors, He should have shown Himself above 
all horrors; and being in the enemy’s hold should have 
overcome; this cometh of Infinite Power. For as in the 
case of the Three Children, their not entering the furnace 
would not have been so astonishing, as that having entered 
in they trampled upon the fire ;—and in the case of Jonah, 
it was a greater thing by far, after he had been swallowed 
by the fish, to suffer no harm from the monster, than if he 
had not been swallowed at all;—so also in regard of Christ ; 
His not dying would not have been so inconceivable, as that 
being dead He should loose the bands of death. Say not 
then, ‘‘why did He not help Himself on the Cross?’ for 
He was hastening on to close conflict with death himself. 
He descended not from the Cross, not because He could 
not, but because He would not. For Him whom the tyranny 
of death restrained not, how could the nails of the Cross 
restrain ? 

But these things, though known to us, are not so as yet 
to the unbelievers. Wherefore he said, that “the preaching 
of the Cross is to them that perish foolishness; but to us 
who are saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I 
will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the understanding 
of the prudent will I bring to nothing.” Nothing from 
himself which might give offence, does he advance up to 
this point; but first he comes to the testimony of the Scrip- 


284 CHRYSOST-OMN. 


ture, and then, furnished with boldness from thence, adopts 
more vehement words and saith, 

Ver. 20, 21. ‘‘Hath not God made foolish the wisdom 
of this world? Where is the wise? Where the Scribe? 
Where the disputer of this world? Hath not God made 
foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that, by the 
wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it 
pleased God, by the foolishness of preaching, to save them 
that believe.” Having said, ‘It is written, I will destroy 
the wisdom of the wise,’’ he subjoins the demonstration 
from facts, saying, ‘‘ Where is the wise? where the Scribe ?” 
at the same time glancing at both Gentiles and Jews. For 
what sort of philosopher, which among those who have 
studied logic, which of those knowing in Jewish matters, 
hath saved us, and made known the truth? Notone. It 
was the Fishermen’s work, the whole of it. 

Having then inferred what he had in view, and brought 
down their pride, and said, ‘“‘ Hath not God made foolish 
the wisdom of this world?” he states the reason also, why 
these things were so done. ‘‘ For after that by the wisdom 
of God,” saith he, ‘the world by wisdom knew not God,” 
the Cross appeared. Now what means, ‘‘ by the wisdom of 
God?” The wisdom apparent in those works, whereby it 
was His will to make Himself known. For to this end did 
He frame them, and frame them such as they are, that by 
a sort of proportion, from the things which are seen, admi- 
ration of the Maker might be learned. Is the heaven great, 
and the earth boundless? Wonder then at Him who made 
them. For this heaven, great as it is, not only was made 
by Him, but made with ease; and that boundless earth too, 
was brought into being even as if it had been nothing. 
Wherefore of the former He saith, ‘‘The works of Thy 
fingers are the heavens ;’’ and concerning the earth, “* Who 
hath made the earth as it were nothing.’ Since then by 
this wisdom the world was unwilling to acknowledge God, 


FOOLISHNESS OF THE CROSS CONQUERING. 285 


He employed what seemed to be foolishness, i. e. the Gospel, 
to persuade men; not by reasonings, but by faith. It 
remains that where God’s wisdom is, there is no longer need 
of man’s. For before, to infer that He who made the 
world, such and so great, must in all reason be a God pos- 
sessed of a certain uncontrollable, unspeakable power; and 
by these means to apprehend Him ;—this was the part of 
human wisdom. But now we need no more reasonings, but 
faith alone. For to believe on Him that was crucified and 
buried, and to be most fully persuaded that this person 
Himself both rose again, and sat down on high; this 
needeth not wisdom, nor reasonings, but faith. For the 
Apostles themselves came in not by wisdom, but by faith, 
and surpassed the heathen wise men in wisdom and loftiness, 
and that so much the more, by how much to raise disputings 
is less than to receive by faith the things of God. For this 
transcends all human understanding. 

But how hath He ‘destroyed wisdom?’ Being made 
known to us by Paul and others like him, He hath shown 
it to be unprofitable. For towards receiving the evangelical 
proclamation, neither is the wise profited at all by wisdom, 
nor the unlearned injured at all by ignorance. But if one 
may speak somewhat even wonderful, ignorance rather than 
wisdom is a condition suitable for that impression, and more 
easily dealt with. For the shepherd and the rustic will 
more quickly receive this, once for all repressing all doubt- 
ing thoughts, and delivering himself to the Lord. In this 
way then He hath destroyed wisdom. For since she first 
cast herself down, she is ever after useful for nothing. 
Thus when she ought to have displayed her proper powers, 
and by the works to have seen the Lord, she would not. 
Wherefore though she were now willing to introduce herself, 
she is not able. For the matter is not of that kind: this 
way of knowing God being far greater than the other. 
You see then, faith and simplicity are needed, and this we 


286 . CHRYSOSTOM. 


should seek everywhere, and prefer it before the wisdom 
which is from without. For ‘ God,” saith he, ‘“‘ hath made 
wisdom foolish.”’ | | 

But what is ‘*He hath made foolish?’ He hath shown 
it foolish in regard of receiving the faith. For since they 
prided themselves on it, He lost no time in exposing it. For 
what sort of wisdom is it, when it cannot discover the chief 
of things that are good? He caused her therefore to appear 
foolish, after she had first convicted herself. For if when 
discoveries might have been made by reasoning, she proved 
nothing, now when things proceed on a larger scale, how 
will she be able to accomplish aught? now when there is 
need of faith alone, and not of acuteness? You see then, 
God hath shown her to be foolish. 

It was His good pleasure too by the foolishness of the 
Gospel to save; foolishness, I say, not real, but appearing 
to be such. For that which is more wonderful yet is His 
haying prevailed by bringing in, not another such wisdom 
more abundant than the first, but what seemed to be foolish- 
ness. He cast out Plato, for example, not by means of 
another philosopher of more skill, but by an unlearned 
fisherman. For thus the defeat became greater, and the 
victory more splendid. 

Ver. 22-24. Next, to show the power of the Cross, he 
saith, ‘“For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek 
after wisdom: but we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews 
a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but 
unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ 
the Power of God, and the Wisdom of Ged.”’ 

Vast is the import of the things here spoken! For he 
means to say how by contraries God hath overcome, and 
how the Gospel is not of man. What he saith is something 
of this sort. When, saith he, we say unto the Jews, Be- 
lieve; they answer, Raise the dead, Heal the demoniacs, 
Show unto us signs. But instead thereof what say we? 


FOOLISHNESS OF THE CROSS CONQUERING. 287 


That He was crucified, and died, who is preached. And 
this is enough, not only to fail in drawing over the unwilling, 
but utterly to drive away those even who are willing. 
Nevertheless, it drives not away, but attracts, and holds 
fast, and overcomes. 

Again; the Greeks demand of us a rhetorical style, and 
the acuteness of sophistry. But we to these also preach 
the Cross: and that which in the case of the Jews is deemed 
to be of weakness, this in the case of the Greeks is foolish- 
ness. Wherefore, when we not only fail in producing what 
they demand, but also produce the very opposites of their 
demand; (for the Cross has not merely no appearance of 
being a sign sought out by reasoning, but even the very 
annihilation of a sign;—is not merely deemed no proof of 
power, but a conviction of weakness ;—not merely no dis- 
play of wisdom, but a ground for surmising foolishness) ;— 
when therefore they who seek for signs and wisdom not only 
receive not the things which they ask, but even hear the 
contrary to what they desire, and then by means of con- 
traries are persuaded ;—how is not the power of Him that 
is preached unspeakable? As if to some one tempest-tost 
and longing for a haven, you were to show not a haven but 
another wilder portion of the sea, and so could make him 
follow with thankfulness! Or as if a physician could 
attract to himself the man that was wounded and in need 
of remedies, by promising to cure him not with drugs, but 
with burning of him again! For this is a result of great 
power indeed. So also the Apostles prevailed, not simply 
by a sign, but even by a thing which seemed contrary to all 
the known signs. Which thing also Christ did in the case 
of the blind man. For when He would heal him, He 
restored him by a thing which increased the blindness: i. e. 
He put on clay. As then by means of clay He healed the 
blind man, so also by means of the Cross hath He brought 
the world to Himself. That certainly was adding an offence, 


288 CHRYSOSTOMN. 


not taking an offence away. So did He also in the Creation, . 
working out things by their contraries. With sand, for 
instance, He walled in the sea, having made the weak a 
bridle to the strong. He placed the earth upon water, hay- 
ing taken order that the heavy and the dense might be 
borne on the soft and fluid. By means of the Prophets 
again with a small piece of wood He raised up iron from 
the bottom. In lke manner also with the Cross He hath 
drawn the world to Himself. For as the water beareth up 
the earth, so also the Cross beareth up the world. You see 
now, it is proof of great power and wisdom, to convince by 
means of the things which tell directly against us. Thus 
' the Cross seems to be matter of offence; and yet far from 
scandalizing, it even attracts. 

Ver. 25. All these things, therefore, Paul bearing in 
mind, and being struck with astonishment, said, that ‘the 
foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of 
God is stronger than men;’’ in relation to the Cross, speak- 
ing of a folly and weakness, not real but apparent. For he 
is answering with respect unto the other party’s opinion. 
For that which philosophers were not able by means of 
reasoning to accomplish, this, what seemed to be foolishness 
did excellently well. Which then is the wiser, he that per- 
suadeth the many or but few, I should say, no one? He 
who petsuadeth concerning the greatest points, or about 
matters which are nothing? What great labors did Plato 
endure, and his followers, discoursing to us about a line, 
and an angle, and a point, and about numbers even and odd, 
and equal unto one another and unequal, and such-like 
spiderwebs (for indeed those webs are not more useless to 
man’s life, than were these subjects): and without doing 
good to any one great or small by their means, so he made 
an end of his life. How greatly did he labor, endeavoring 
to show that the soul is immortal! and even as he came he 
went away, having spoken nothing with certainty, nor per- 


FOOLISHNESS OF THE CROSS CONQUERING. 289 


suaded any hearer. But the Cross wrought persuasion by 
means of unlearned men; yea it persuaded even the whole 
world: and not about common things, but in discourse of 
God and the godliness which is according to truth, and the 
evangelical way of life, and the judgment of the things to 
come. And of all men it made philosophers: the very 
rustics, the utterly unlearned. Behold how “the foolishness 
of God is wiser than men,” and “the weakness stronger !”’ 
How, stronger? Because it overran the whole world, and 
took all by main force, and while men were endeavoring by 
ten thousands to quench the name of the Crucified, the con- 
trary came to pass: that flourished and increased more and 
more, but they perished and wasted away; and the living, 
in war with the dead, had no power. So that when the 
Greek calls me foolish, he shows himself exceedingly above 
measure foolish: since I who am esteemed by him a fool, 
evidently appear wiser than the wise. When he calleth me 
weak, then he showeth himself to be weaker. For the noble 
things which publicans and fishermen were able to effect by 
the grace of God, these, philosophers, and rhetoricians, and 
tyrants, and in short the whole world, running ten thousand 
ways here and there, could not even form a notion of. For 
what did not the Cross introduce? The doctrine concerning 
the Immortality of the Soul; that concerning the Resurrec- 
tion of the Body; that concerning the contempt of things 
present; that concerning the desire of things future. Yea, 
Angels it hath made of men, and all, everywhere, practise 
self-denial, and show forth all kinds nf fortitude. 

But among them also, it will be said, many have been 
found contemners of death. Tell me who? was it he who 
drank the hemlock? But if thou wilt, I can bring forward 
ten thousand such from within the Church. For had it been 
lawful when persecution befell them to drink hemlock and 
depart, all had become more famous than he. And besides, 
he drank when he was not at liberty to drink or not to 

10 T 


290 CHRYSOSTOM. 


drink; but willing or against his will he must have under- 
gone it: no effect surely of fortitude, but of necessity, and 
nothing more. For even robbers and man-slayers, having 
fallen under the condemnation of their judges, have suffered 
things more grievous. But with us it is all quite the con- 
trary. For not against their will did the martyrs endure, 
but of their will, and being at liberty not to suffer; showing 
forth fortitude harder than all adamant. This then you see 
is no great wonder, that he whom I was mentioning drank 
hemlock, it being no longer in his power not to drink, and 
also when he had arrived at a very great age. For when 
he despised life he stated himself to be seventy years old; 
if this can be called despising. For I for my part could 
not affirm it: nor, what is more, can any one else. But 
show me some one enduring firm in torments for godliness’ 
sake, as I show thee ten thousand everywhere in the world. 
Who, while his nails were tearing out, nobly endured? 
Who, while his joints were wrenching asunder? Who, while 
his body was enduring spoil, member by member? or his 
head? Who, while his bones were being heaved out by 
levers? Who, while placed without intermission upon 
frying-pans? Who, when thrown into a caldron? Show 
me these instances. For to die by hemlock is all as one 
with a sleeping man’s continuing in a state of sleep. Nay 
even sweeter than sleep is this sort of death, if report say 
true. But if certain [of them] did endure torments, yet 
of these too the praise is gone to nothing. For on some 
disgraceful occasion they perished; some for revealing 
mysteries; some for aspiring to dominion; others detected 
in the foulest crimes; others again at random, and fruit- 
lessly, and ignorantly, there being no reason for it, made 
away with themselves. But:not so with us. Wherefore of 
their deeds nothing is said; but these flourish and daily 
increase. Which Paul having in mind said, ‘‘ The weakness 
of God is stronger than all men.” 


FOOLISHNESS OF THE CROSS CONQUERING. 291 


For that the Gospel is divine, even from hence is evident ; 
namely, from what quarter could it have occurred to twelve 
ignorant men to attempt such great things? who sojourned 
in marshes, in rivers, in deserts; who never at any time 
perhaps had entered into a city nor into a forum :—whence 
did it occur, to set themselves in array against the whole 
world? For that they were timid and unmanly, he shows 
who wrote of them, not shrinking back, nor enduring to 
throw their failings into the shade: which indeed of itself 
is a very great token of the truth. What then doth he say 
about them? ‘That when Christ was apprehended, after 
ten thousand wonders, the rest fled; and he who remained, 
being the leader of the rest, denied. Whence was it then 
that they who, when Christ was alive, endured not the 
attack of the Jews; now that He was dead and buried, and, 
as ye say, had not risen again, nor had any talk with them, 
nor infused courage into them,—whence did they set them- 
selves in array against so great a world? Would they not 
have said among themselves, “What ever meaneth this? 
Himself He was not able to save, and will He protect us? 
Himself He defended not when alive, and will He stretch 
out the hand unto us now that He is dead? Himself, when 
alive, subdued not even one nation; and are we to convince 
the whole world by uttering His Name?” How, I ask, 
could all this be reasonable, I will not say, as something to 
be done, but even as something to be imagined? From 
whence it is plain, that had they not seen Him after He 
was risen, and received most ample proof of His power, 
they would not have ventured so great a cast. 

For suppose they had possessed friends innumerable; 
would they not presently have got them all for enemies, 
disturbing ancient customs, and removing their fathers’ 
land-marks? But as it was, they had before gotten them 
for enemies, all, both their own countrymen and foreigners. © 
For although they had been recommended to veneration by 


292 CHRYSOSTOM. 


everything external, would not all men have abhorred them, 
introducing a new polity? But now they were even void of 
all; and it was likely that even on that account all would 
hate and scorn them at once. For whom will you name? 
The Jews? Nay, they had against them an inexpressible 
hatred on account of the things which had been done unto 
the Master. The Greeks then? Why, first of all, these 
had rejected one not inferior to them; and no men know 
these things so well as the Greeks. For Plato, who wished 
to strike out a new form of government, or rather a part of 
government ; and that, not by changing the customs relating 
to the gods, but merely by substituting one line of conduct 
for another; being cast out of Sicily, went near to lose his 
life. This however did not ensue: so that he lost his liberty 
alone. And had not a certain Barbarian been more gentle 
than the tyrant of Sicily, nothing could have rescued the 
philosopher from slavery throughout life in a foreign land. 
And yet it is not all one to innovate in affairs of a kingdom, 
and in matters of religious worship. For the latter more 
than anything else causes disturbance and troubles men. 
For to say, ‘‘let such and such an one marry such a woman, 
and let the guardians [of the commonwealth] exercise their 
guardianship so and so,” is not enough to cause any great 
disturbance: and especially when all this is lodged in a 
book, and no great anxiety on the part of the legislator to 
carry the proposals into practice. On the other hand, to 
say, ‘‘they be no gods which men worship, but demons; He 
who was crucified is God;’’ ye well know how great wrath 
it kindled, how severely men must have paid for it, what a 
flame of war it fanned. 

For Protagoras, who was one of them, having dared to 
say, ‘I know of no gods,” not going round the world and 
_ proclaiming it, but in a single city, was in the most imminent 
peril of his life. And Diagoras the Milesian, and Theo- 
dorus, who was called Atheist, although they had friends, 





FOOLISHNESS OF THE CROSS CONQUERING. 293 


and that influence which comes from eloquence, and were 
held in admiration because of their philosophy; yet never- 
theless none of these profited them. And the great Socrates 
too, he who surpassed in philosophy all among them, for 
this reason drank hemlock, because in his discourses con- 
cerning the gods he was suspected of moving things a little 
aside. Now if the suspicion alone of innovation brought so 
great danger on philosophers and wise men, and on those 
who had attained boundless popularity ; and if they were 
not only unable to do what they wished, but were themselves 
also driven from life and country; how canst thou choose 
but be in admiration and astonishment, when thou seest 
that the fisherman hath produced such an effect upon the 
world, and accomplished his purposes; hath overcome both 
Barbarians and Greeks—all of them? 

But they did not, you will say, introduce strange gods as 
the others did. Well, and in that you are naming the very 
point most to be wondered at: that the innovation is two- 
fold, both to pull down those which are, and to announce 
the Crucified. For from whence came it into their minds to 
proclaim such things? whence, to be confident about their 
event? Whom of those before them could they perceive to 
have prospered in any such attempt? Were not all men 
worshipping devils? Were not all used to make gods of 
the elements? Was not the difference [but] in the mode of 
impiety ? But nevertheless they attacked all, and overthrew 
all, and overran in a short time the whole world, like a sort 
of winged beings; making no account of dangers, of deaths, 
of the difficulty of the thing, of their own fewness, of the 
multitude of the opponents, of the authority, the rank, the 
wisdom of those at war with them. For they had above all 
these, mightier aid, the power of Him that had been cruci- 
fied and was risen again. It would not have been so won- 
drous, had they chosen to wage war with the world in the 
literal sense, as this which in fact has taken place. For 


294 CHRYSOSTOM. 


according to the law of battle they might have stood over 
against the enemies, and occupying some adverse ground, 
have arrayed themselves accordingly, to meet the array of 
their foes, and have taken their time for attack and close 
conflict. But in this case it is not so. For they had no 
camp of their own, but were absolutely mingled with their 
enemies, and thus overcame them. Even in the midst of 
their enemies as they went about, they glided away from 
their hold, and became superior, and achieved a splendid 
victory; a victory which fulfils the prophecy that saith, 
‘‘Hven in the midst of thine enemies thou shalt have 
dominion.” For this it was which was full of all astonish- 
ment, that their enemies having them in their power, and 
casting them into prisons and chains, not only did not van- 
quish them, but themselves also eventually had to stoop 
under them: the scourgers to the scourged, the binders in 
chains to those who were bound, the persecutors to the 
fugitives. All these things then we say unto the Greeks, 
yea rather more than these; for the truth has enough and 
greatly to.spare. And if ye will follow the argument, we 
will teach ‘you the whole method of fighting against them. 
In the mean while let us hold fast these two heads; How 
did the weak overcome the strong? and, From whence came 
it into their thoughts, being such as they were, to form such 
plans, unless they enjoyed Divine aid? 

So far then as to what we have to say. But let us show 
forth by our actions all excellencies of conduct, and kindle 
abundantly the fire of virtue. For “ye are lights,” saith 
he, “shining in the midst of the world.” And unto each 
of us God hath committed a greater function than He hath 
to the sun: greater than heaven, and earth, and sea; and 
by so much greater, as spiritual things be more excellent 
than things sensible. When then we look unto the solar 
orb, and admire the beauty, and the body, and the bright- 
ness of the luminary, let us consider again that greater and 


FOOLISHNESS OF THE CROSS CONQUERING. 295 


better is the light which is in us, as indeed the darkness 
also is more dreadful unless we take heed. And in fact a 
deep night oppresses the whole world. This is what we 
have to dispel and dissolve. It is night not among heretics, 
nor among Greeks only, but also in the multitude on our 
side, in respect of doctrines and of life. For many entirely 
disbelieve the resurrection; many fortify themselves with 
their horoscope; many adhere to superstitious observances, 
and to omens, and auguries, and presages. And some 
likewise employ amulets and charms. But to these also we 
will speak afterwards, when we have finished what we have 
to say to the Greeks. 

In the mean while hold fast the things which have been 
said, and be ye fellow-helpers with me in the battle; by 
your way of life attracting them to us and changing them. 
For, as I am always saying, He that teaches high morality 
ought first to teach it in his own person, and be such as his 
hearers cannot do without. Let us therefore become such, 
and make the Greeks feel kindly towards us. And this 
will come to pass if we make up our minds not to do ill, 
_ but rather to suffer ill. Do we not see when little children 
being borne in their father’s arms, give him that carries 
them blows on the cheek, how sweetly the father lets the 
boy have his fill of wrath, and when he sees that he has 
spent his passion, how his countenance brightens up? In 
like manner let us also act; and as fathers with children, 
so let us discourse with the Greeks. For all the Greeks are 
children. And this, some of their own writers have said, 
that “that people are children always, and no Greek is an 
old man.’’ Now children cannot bear to take thought for 
anything useful; so also the Greeks would be for ever at 
play; and they lie on the ground, grovelling in posture and 
in affections. Moreover, children oftentimes, when we are 
discoursing about important things, give no heed to any- 
thing that is said, but will even be laughing all the time: 


296 CHRYSOSTOM. 


such also are the Greeks. When we discourse of the King- 
dom, they laugh. And as spittle dropping in abundance 
from an infant’s mouth, which oftentimes spoils its meat and 
drink, such also are the words flowing from the mouth of 
the Greeks, vain and unclean. Even if thou art giving 
children their necessary food, they keep on vexing those 
who furnish it with evil speech, and we must bear with them 
all the while. Again, children, when they see a robber 
entering and taking away the furniture, far from resisting, 
even smile on him in his mischievous craft; but shouldest 
thou take away the little basket or the jingles or any other 
of their play-things, they take it to heart and fret, tear 
themselves, and stamp on the floor; just so do the Greeks 
also: when they behold the devil pilfering all their paternal 
wealth, and even the things which support their life, they 
laugh and run to him as to a friend: but should any one 
take away any possession, be it wealth or any childish thing 
whatsoever of that kind, they cry, they tear themselves. 
And as children expose their limbs unconsciously and blush 
not for shame; so the Greeks, wallowing in whoredoms and 
adulteries, and laying bare the laws of nature, and introduc- 
ing unlawful intercourses, are not abashed. 

Ye have given me vehement applause and acclamation: 
but with all your applause have a care lest you be among 
those of whom these things are said. Wherefore I beseech 
you all to become men: since, so long as we are children, 
how shall we teach them manliness? How shall we restrain 
them from childish folly? Let us, therefore, become men ; 
that we may arrive at the measure of the stature which 
hath been marked out for us by Christ, and may obtain the 
good things to come: through the grace and loving-kindness 
of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom unto the Father 
together with the Holy Spirit be glory, power, honor, now 
and henceforth and for evermore. Amen. 


+ 


XIX. 
MARKS OF LOVE TO GOD. 


HALL. 
[Rosert Hatt, one of the most famous of English divines, was born 
at Arnsby, Leicestershire, May 2d 1764, and died February 21st 1831. 
He studied at King’s College, Aberdeen, and at nineteen became an 


assistant Baptist minister in Broadmead Chapel, near Bristol. Sub- 


sequently he labored in Cambridge and Leicester, returning to Bristol 
in 1835. His treasures of learning and gifts of glowing eloquence 
were unsurpassed. Artless, earnest, sincere, and wholly absorbed in 
his discourse, his hearers would grow so entranced by his sublime 
appeals, that often many would start to their feet and remain standing 
till he ceased speaking. Dugald Stewart called him a writer of Eng- 
lish in its perfection, ‘‘combining the beauties of Johnson, Addison, 
and Burke, without their imperfections.”” He suffered acutely from 
spine disease, and had several attacks of mental derangement, but was 
till death a faithful pastor and student. Through life he ardently 
advocated ‘‘ mixed’’ or open communion with Christians. | 


“ But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you.’’—John v. 42. 


THE persons whom our Lord addressed in these words 
made a high profession of religion, valued themselves upon 
their peculiar opportunities of knowing the true God and 
his will, and proclaimed themselves as the Israel and the 
temple of the Lord, while they despised the surrounding 
pagans as those who were strangers to the divine law. Yet 
the self-complacent Pharisees of our Saviour’s age were as 
far from the love of God, he assures them in the text, as 
any of those who had never heard of his name. In this 
respect, many of “the first were last, and the last first.” 
The rejection of the gospel evinces a hardness of heart 
which is decisive against the character; and, in the case of 
the Pharisees, it gave ample evidence that they possessed no 
love of God. Had they really known Gfod, as our Lord 

(297) 


298 ROBERT HALL, 


argues, they would have known himself to be sent by God: 
whereas, in proving the bitter enemies of Christ, they proved 
that they were in a state of enmity against God. By parity 
of reason, we, my brethren, who know God and his word in 
the way of Christian profession, ought not to take it for 
granted that we possess the love of God, and are in the way 
of eternal life: the same self-delusion may overtake us also ; 
and similar admonitions may be no less necessary to many 
present, than to the Pharisees of old. Suffer then, my 
brethren, the word of exhortation, while I invite each indi- 
vidual seriously to consider this subject, with a view to the 
discovery of his real character. 

In proceeding to lay down certain marks of grace, let it 
be premised, that either these marks partake of the nature 
of true religion, or they do not. If they do, they must be 
identified with it, and here the mark is the thing: if they do 
not partake of its nature, some of them may exist as indi- 
cations where genuine religion is not. It is necessary, then, 
that we combine a variety of particular signs of grace: any 
one taken by itself, may, or may not, exist, without true 
religion; but where many are combined, no just doubt can 
remain. 

Whether you have the love of God in your soul, presents 
a most critical subject of inquiry; since the love of God 
will be acknowledged by all to be the great, the essential, 
principle of true religion. The simple question, then, to 
which I would call your attention, is this: ‘Am I, or am I 
not, a sincere lover of the Author of my being?” 

In endeavoring to assist you in the decision of this momen- 
tous question, as it respects yourselves, 

I. I shall entreat your attention while I suggest a variety 
of marks which indicate love to God; and, 

II. Supposing the conviction produced by the statement 
to be, that you have not the love of God, I shall point out 
the proper improvement of such a conviction. 


MARKS OF LOVE TO GOD. 299 


I. In suggesting various marks by which you may ascer- 
tain whether you love God, or not, I would mention, 

1. The general bent and turn of your thoughts, when not 
under the immediate control of circumstances; for these, 
you are aware, give a new and peculiar bias to our thoughts, 
and stamp them with an impress of their own. There is an 
infinite variety of thoughts continually passing through the 
mind of every individual: of these, some are thrown up 
by occasions; but others, and often the greater part, follow 
the habitual train of our associations. It is not to thoughts 
of the former kind that I refer; it is to those of the latter 
class,—those voluntary thoughts which spring up of them- 
selves in the mind of every person: it is these, not the 
former, that afford clear indication of the general temper 
and disposition. The question I would propose to you is, 
What is the bent of your thoughts, when, disengaged from 
the influence of any particular occurrence, you are left to 
yourselves, in the intervals of retirement and tranquillity, in 
the silence of the midnight watches, and, in short, whenever 
your mind is left free to its own spontaneous musings? Are 
the thoughts most familiar to your mind, at such times, 
thoughts of God and the things of God;—or, are they 
thoughts that turn upon the present world and its transient 
concerns? Are they confined, for the most part, within the 
narrow circle of time and sense; or, do they make frequent 
and large excursions into the spiritual and eternal world ? 
The answer to this question will go far to decide whether 
you have, or have not, the love of God. It is impossible 
that such an object as the Divine Being should be absent 
long from your thoughts; impossible that hs remembrance 
should long’ remain merged in the stream of other imagina- 
tions; unless you are supposed chargeable with a decided 
indifference to divine things! Unless you are destitute of 
love to God, you can never be so utterly uncongenial in 
sentiment and feeling with the Psalmist, when he says, ‘“‘ My 


300 ROBERT HALL. 


mouth shall praise thee with joyful: lips, while I meditate 
upon thee in the night watches:’’ ‘“ How precious are thy 
thoughts unto me, O God!’ When that man of God gazed 
upon the starry heavens, his mind was not merely wrought 
into astonishment at the physical energy there displayed ; 
he was still more deeply lost in grateful admiration of the 
mercy of Providence as manifested to man :—a sinful child 
of dust, and yet visited by God in the midst of so magnifi- 
cent a universe! But when day passes after day, and night 
after night, without any serious thoughts of God, it is plain 
that He is not the home of your mind, not your portion, 
centre, and resting-place: and, if this is the case, it is 
equally plain that you are not in a state of acceptance with 
Him; since nothing can be more certain than that, as our 
thoughts are, such must be our character. I do not ask 
what are your thoughts at particular ¢¢mes, or under the 
influence of some particular event: there may be little differ- 
ence, on some occasions, between those who remember, and 
those who neglect, God habitually. The charge against the 
ungodly is, that “God is not in all their thoughts.” If 
there are any here who feel this charge as bearing against 
themselves, let them take that solemn warning given by God 
himself at the close of the fiftieth Psalm: ‘Oh, consider 
this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there 
be none to deliver you !” 

2. Let me request you to consider seriously how you 
stand disposed to the exercises of religion. If God is the 
object of your love, you will gladly avail yourselves of the 
most favorable opportunities of cultivating a closer friend- 
ship with the Father of your spirits: on the contrary, he 
who feels no regard for these opportunities, proves that he 
has no love to God, and will never be able to establish the 
conviction that God is his friend. Wherever there exists a 
sincere friendship, opportunities of cultivating it are gladly 
embraced, and the opposite privations are-regretted. Where 


MARKS OF LOVE TO GOD. 301 


an habitual neglect of sacred exercises prevails, it must be 
interpreted as if it said, like those whom the prophet 
describes, “Cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from 
amongst us. Depart from us, for we desire not the know- 
ledge of thy ways!’’ If your closets seldom witness your 
private devotions, if your moments in retirement are languid 
and uninteresting,—your religion can have no hold on your 
heart; and the-reason why your religion has no hold on 
your heart, is because you have no love of God. There are 
some whose religion sits easy and delightful upon them ; its 
acts and functions are free and lively: there are others who 
seem to bear their religion as a burthen, to drag their duties as 
a chain—as no vital part of themselves, but rather a cumbrous 
appendage: this is a decisive and melancholy symptom of a 
heart alienated from God. There is no genuine religion, no 
real contact of the heart with the best of beings, unless it 
makes us continually resort to Him as our chief joy. The 
Psalmist is always expressing his fervent desires after God: 
after the light of the divine countenance, and the sense of 
the divine favor: but do you suppose such desires peculiar 
to the state of believers under the Old Testament? No, 
my brethren; there exist more abundant reasons than ever, 
since the gospel of Christ has been displayed in all the 
glorious fullness of its blessings, why our souls should be 
inflamed with such feelings as ‘those which inspired the 
Psalmist, when he exclaimed, ‘‘ As the hart panteth for the 
water-brooks, so longeth my soul after thee, O God !” 

3. If you would ascertain whether you love God, consider 
how you stand affected toward the word of God. We can 
entertain no just thoughts of God, but such as we derive from 
his own word: we can acquire no true knowledge of God, 
nor cherish any suitable affections towards him, unless they 
are such as his own revelation authorizes. Otherwise we 
must suppose that revelation insufficient for its specific pur- 
poses, and set the means against the end. All, therefore, 


802 ROBERT HALL. 


who sincerely love God, are students of his word; they here, 
also, accord in soul with the Psalmist, and, like him, can 
say, ‘“‘O how I love thy word! in it is my meditation all the 
day:” they eat it as food for their souls, and find it sweeter 
than honey. They go to it as to an inexhaustible fountain, 
and drink from it streams of sacred light and joy. A 
neglected Bible is too unambiguous a sign of an unsanctified 
heart; since that blessed book cannot fail to attract every 
one that loves its Divine Author. How is it possible to 
delight in God, and yet neglect that word which alone reveals 
him in his true and glorious character,—alone discovers the 
way by which he comes into unison with us, and .condescends 
to pardon us, to love us, and to guide us through all this 
mysterious state of being? It is observable, that the only 
persons who are inattentive to their own sacred books are to 
be found among Christians. Mahomedans commit large 
portions of the Koran to memory; the Jews regard the Old 
Testament with reverence; the Hindoo Bramins are enthusi- 
astically attached to their Shaster; while Christzans alone 
neglect their Bible. And the reason is, that the Scriptures 
are so much more spiritual than the religious books received 
by others: they afford so little scope for mere amusement or 
self-complacency ;—they place the reader alone with God,— 
they withdraw him from the things that are seen and tem- 
poral, and, fix him among the things that are unseen and 
eternal,—they disclose to his view at once the secret evils 
of his own condition, and the awful purity of that Being with 
whom he has to do. No wonder the ungodly man hates their 
light, neither comes to their light, but retires from it farther 
and farther into the shades of guilty ignorance. How melan- 
choly the infatuation of such a character ! 

4. Estimate your character in respect to your love of 
God, by reflecting with what sentiments you regard the 
people of God. God has a people peculiarly his own: they 
are not of that world to which they outwardly belong,—not 


MARKS OF LOVE TO GOD. 803 


conformed to it in the spirit of their mind; they stand apart, 
many of them at least, in conspicuous conformity to Jesus 
Christ, and earnest expectation of the glory which He has 
promised. How, then, do you regard these decided followers 
of God? Do you shun their society with aversion and secret 
shame; or do you enjoy their communion as one of the most 
delightful among your Christian privileges? Are you con- 
tent merely to be the companion of those who “have a name 
to live, but are dead:’’ or can you say with the Psalmist, 
‘“¢ My delight is in the excellent of the earth?” or, with the 
beloved disciple, ‘‘ We know tliat we have passed from death 
unto life, because we love the brethren?’ for, as he adds, 
“He that loveth him that begot, loveth him that is begot- 
ten: if you do not love the zmage which you have seen, 
how can you love the unseen original? If the features of 
holiness and grace in the creature are not attractive to your 
view, how can your affections rise to the perfect essence ? 
How can you ascend to the very Sun itself, when you can- 
not enjoy even the faint reflection of its glory? He who 
knew the heart, could alone say to those around hin, “I 
know you, that ye have not the love of God in you:”’ but 
though none can address you now in the same tone of divine 
authority, yet you may hear it uttered by a voice within— 
the voice of your own conscience: you may know, without 
any perturbations of hope or fear, by the spiritual insen- 
sibility and inaction of your soul,—by this you may know, 
with equal certainty as by a voice from heaven, that you 
have not the love of God in you! 

5. Consider the disposition you entertain toward the per- 
son and office of the Son of God. “If ye had loved the 
Father, ye would have loved me also,’ was the constant 
argument of Jesus Christ to those Pharisees whom he ad- 
dresses in the text. For Jesus Christ is the express image 
of God: the effulgence of the divine character is attempered 
in him, to suit the views of sinful humanity. In the life of Jesus 


304 ROBERT HALL. 


Christ, we see how the Divine Being conducts himself in , 
human form and in our own circumstances: we behold how 
he bears all the sorrows, and passes through all the tempta- 
tions, of flesh and blood. Such, indeed, is the identity, so 
perfect the oneness. of character, between the man Christ 
Jesus and the Divine Being,—that our Saviour expressly 
assures us, ‘‘ He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father ; 
IT and my Father are one.” ‘The purpose for which God was 
manifested in the flesh was, not to reveal high speculations 
concerning the nature of the Deity: it was to bear our sor- 
rows, and to dze for our sins. But can you contemplate Him, 
thus stooping to your condition, thus mingling with every 
interest of your own, and not be moved by such a spectacle ? 
—not be attracted, fixed, filled with grateful astonishment 
and devotion,—crucified, as it were, on the cross of Christ, 
to the flesh, and to the world? What mark, then, of our 
possessing no love of God can equal this, that we are with- 
out love to Jesus Christ ?—that neither the visibility of his 
divine excellence, nor his particcpation of all our human 
sufferings, can reach our hearts, and command our affec- 
tions ? 

6. In examining whether you love God, examine how you 
are affected by his benefits. These are so numerous and so 
distinguished, that they ought to excite our most ardent 
gratitude: night and day they are experienced by us; they 
pervade every moment of our being. We know that favors 
from an enemy derive a taint from the hands through which 
they are received, and excite alienation rather than attach- 
ment: but the kindness of a friend, by constantly remind- 
ing us of himself, endears that friend more and more to our 
hearts; and thus, he that has no love to God receives all his 
favors without the least attraction toward their Author, whom 
he regards rather as his enemy than his friend. But the 
Christian feels his love of God excited by every fresh in- 
stance of his goodness. The mercies of God have accom- 
panied you through every stage of your journey; and they 


MARKS OF LOVE TO GOD. 305 


are exhibited to you in his word as stretching through a vast 
eternity. Are these the only benefits you can receive with- 
out gratitude, and suffer to pass unregarded? How, then, 
can any love of God dwell in your bosom ? 

T. Consider, in the next place, in what manner you are 
impressed by the sense of your sins. The question is not 
whether you have any sins,—none can admit a doubt on this 
point; the only inquiry is, how you are affected by those 
sins? Are they remembered by you with a sentiment of 
tender regret, of deep confusion and humiliation, that you 
should ever have so requited such infinite goodness? And 
is this sentiment combined with a sacred resolution to go and 
sin no more, —to devote yourself to the service of your Divine 
Benefactor? If you can live without an habitual sense of 
penitential tenderness and reverential fear, be assured you 
cannot love God; you have no experience of those scripture 
declarations: ‘‘ They shall rzar the Lord and his goodness 
in the latter days;’’ ‘There is forgiveness with thee, that 
thou mayest be FEARED ;”’ you know not yet that “the good- 
ness of God leadeth to repentance.” If the mind is softened 
by the love of God, all his favors serve to inflame its grati- 
tude, and confirm its devotion to his will: but he who has no 
love of God in his soul, thinks of nothing but how he may 
escape from God’s hand, and selfishly devours all his favors 
without an emotion of gratitude to the Giver. 

8. Finally, let me remind you to consider how you are 
affected to the present world. If you could only be exempt 

from its afflictions, would you wish it to be your lasting 
home? If you could surround yourself with all its advan- 
tages and enjoyments, would you be content. to dwell in it 
for ever? Yet you know that it is a place of separation and 
exile from the Divine Majesty ;—that it is a scene of dark- 
ness, in comparison with heaven, very faintly illuminated 
with the beams of his distant glory ;—that its inhabitant is 
constrained to say, ‘‘I have heard of thee by the hearing 

U 





306 ROBERT HALL. 


of the ear, but mine eye hath not yet seen thee ;’’—while 
heaven is the proper dwelling-place of God and his people! 
Could you then consent to remain here always, without ever 
seeing as you are seen,—seeing light in his light,—without 
ever beholding his glory ; without ever drinking at the fount- 
ain, and basking in that presence which is fullness of joy, and 
life for evermore! always to remain zmmersed in the shadows 
of time—entombed in its corruptible possessions! never to 
ascend up on high to God and Christ and the glories of the 
eternal world! If such is the state of your spirit, you want 
the essential principle of a Christian—you want the love 
of God. The genuine Christian, the lover of God, is cer- 
tain to feel himself a ‘“ stranger on the earth.” No splendor, 
no emolument of this world,—not all the fascinations of sen- 
sual pleasure,—can detain his heart below the skies, or keep 
him from sympathizing with the sentiment of the Psalmist: 
‘¢ As for me I shall behold thy face in righteousness ; I shall 
be satisfied when I wake in thy likeness.” I do not ask 
whether you have, at present, “‘a desire to depart:’’ per- 
haps you may not be as yet sufficiently prepared and estab- 
lished to entertain so exalted a desire; but still, if you have 
received a new heart, you will deprecate nothing so much as 
having your portion in this life,—as having your eternal 
abode on earth. It is the character of faith to dwell much 
in eternity: the apostle says, in the name of all real believ- 
ers, ‘‘ We look not at the things that are seen, but the things 
that are not seen; for the things that are seen are temporal, 
but the things that are not seen are eternal.”’ 

II. And now, my-brethren, supposing the preceding 
remarks to have produced in any of you the conviction that 
you have not the love of God in you, permit me very briefly 
to point out the proper zmprovement of such a conviction. 

1. First, it should be accompanied with deep humélation. 
If you labored under the privation of some bodily organ, 
requisite to the discharge of an animal function, you would 
feel it as in some degree a humiliating circumstance; but 


MARKS OF LOVE TO GOD. 307 


what would be any defect of this kind, however serious, in 
comparison with that great want under which you labor— 
the want of piety, the calamity of a soul estranged from the 
love of God! What are all other subjects of humiliation, 
compared with this—a moral fall, a spiritual death in sin: 
and this, unless it be removed, the sure precursor of the 
second death—eternal ruin! ‘ This is a lamentation indeed, 
and it shall be for a lamentation.” 

Suppose the children of a family, reared and provided for 
by the most affectionate of parents, to rise up in rebellion 
against their father, and cast off all the feelings of filial 
tenderness and respect; would any qualities those children 
might possess, any appearances of virtue they might exhibit 
in other respects, compensate for such an unnatural, such an 
awful deformity of character? Transfer this representation 
to your conduct in relation to God: “If I,” says he, “am 
a father, where is my fear? if I am a master, where is my 
honor?” ‘Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth! I 
have nourished and brought up children, and they have 
rebelled against me: the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass 
his master’s crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth 
not consider.”’ 

2. And let your humiliation be accompanied with concern 
and alarm. To be alienated from the Great Origin of being ; 
to be severed, or to sever yourself from the essential Author 
and element of all felicity, must be a calamity which none 
can understand, an infinite woe which none can measure or 
conceive! If the stream is cut off from the fountain, it soon 
ceases to flow, and its waters are dissipated in the air: and 
if the soul is cut off from God, it dies! Its vital contact with 
God,—its spiritual union with the Father of Spirits through 
the blessed Mediator, is the only life and beauty of the im- 
mortal soul. All, without this, are dead—“ dead in trespasses 
and sins!” A living death—a state of restléss wanderings, 
and unsatisfied desires! What a condition theirs! And, oh! 
what a prospect for such, when they look beyond this world! 


308 ROBERT HALL: 


Who will give them a welcome when they enter an eternal 
state? What reception will they meet with, and where? 
What consolation amidst their loss and their sufferings, but 
that of the fellow-sufferers plunged in the same abyss of ruin? 
Impenitent sinners are allied to evil spirits ; they have an affi- 
nity with the kingdom of darkness; and when they die, they 
are emphatically said to “‘go to THEIR OWN place !” 

3. This is an awful state for any to be in at present; but, 
blessed be God, it is not yet a hopeless situation. Let no 
person say, ‘‘I find by what I have heard, that I do not love 
God, and therefore I can entertain no hope.” There is a 
way of return and recovery open to all. Jesus Christ, my 
dear brethren, proclaims to you all, “I am the way. No 
man can come to the Father but by me:’—but every one 
that will may come by this new and living way; and, if you 
lose life eternal, you lose it because,—according to his words 
just before the text,—because ‘‘ you will not come to Christ 
that you may have life.” If you feel the misery, deformity, 
and danger of your state, then listen to his invitation, and 
embrace his promise. See the whole weight of your ‘guilt 
transferred to his cross! See how God can be at once the 
just and the justifier! Take of the blood of sprinkling, 
and be at peace! His blood cleanseth from all sin: He 
will send that Spirit into your heart, which will manifest 
him to you; and where that Spirit is, there is liberty and 
holy love. He is the mystical ladder, let down from heaven 
to earth, on which angels are continually ascending and 
descending, in token of an alliance established between God 
and man. United by faith to Jesus Christ, you shall become 
a habitation of God through the Spirit ; the Father will make 
you a partaker of his love, the Son of his grace, angels of 
their friendship ; and you shall be preserved, and progres- 
sively sanctified; until, by the last change, all remains of 
the grand epidemic source of evils shall be for ever removed 
from your soul; and the love of God shall constitute your 
eternal felicity. 


OOS, 
CONDESCENSION OF CHRIST. 


SPURGEON. 

[Cuartes Happon Spurceon, perhaps the most widely popular of 
living English preachers, is the son and grandson of dissenting minis- 
ters. He was born at Kelvedon, Essex, June 19th 1834. After an 
academic training in the Maidstone Agricultural College, he served as 
a tutor several years. In 1850 he began to preach, and in his nine- 
teenth year was installed in the New Park Street Chapel, Southwark, 
London. His great Baptist Tabernacle on the Kensington Road was 
consecrated in 1861, and its regular audience numbers five thousand. 
Yearly volumes of his Sermons are published, and their sales equal a 
half million copies. ‘‘Morning by Morning” and ‘‘ Evening by 
Evening” are attractive guides for religious meditation. Power, 
fervor of conception, and passionateness of appeal, individualize his 
Sermons, rather than delicacy and the graces of culture, every thought 
translucent with Christian earnestness. Whole-souled, and full of 
labors, he is yet in the early prime of manhood. | 


“ For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was 
rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty 
might be rich.” —2 Cor. viii. 9. 


THE apostle, in this chapter, was endeavoring to stir up 
the Corinthians to liberality. He desired them to contribute 
something for those who were the poor of the flock, that he 
might be able to minister to their necessities. He tells them, 
that the churches of Macedonia, though very much poorer 
than the church at Corinth, had done even beyond their 
means for the relief of the Lord’s family, and he exhorts the 
Corinthians to do the same. But, suddenly recollecting that 
examples taken from inferiors seldom have a powerful effect, 
he lays aside his argument drawn from the church of Mace- 
donia, and he holds before them a-reason for liberality which 
the hardest heart can scarcely resist, if once that reason be 
applied by the Spirit. “My brethren,” said he, “ there is 

(309) 


310 CHARLES H. SPURGEON. 


One above, by whom you hope you have been saved, One 
whom you ¢all Master and Lord: now if you will but imitate 
him, you cannot be ungenerous or illiberal. For, my 
brethren, I tell you a thing which is an old thing with you and 
an undisputed truth—‘ For ye know the grace of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he 
became poor, that ye through his poverty might. be rich.’ 
Let this constrain you to benevolence.” O Christian, when- 
ever thou art inclined to an avaricious withholding from the 
church of God, think of thy Saviour giving up all that he 
had to serve thee; and canst thou then, when thou beholdest 
self-denial so noble,—canst thou then be selfish, and regard 
thyself, when the claims of the poor of the flock are pressed 
upon thee? Remember Jesus; think thou seest him look 
thee in the face and say to thee, “I gave myself for thee, 
and dost thou withhold thyself from me? For if thou dost 
so, thou knowest not my love in all its heights and depths 
and lengths and breadths.”’ 

And now, dear friends, the argument of the apostle shall 
be our subject to-day. It divides itself in an extremely sim- 
ple manner. We have first, the pristine condition of our 
Saviour— He was rich.”” We have next, his condescension 
—‘‘He became poor.’”’ And then we have the effect and 
result of his poverty— That we might be made rich.”” We 
shall thew close by giving you a doctrine, a question, and an 
exhortation. May God bless all these, and help us to tell 
them aright. 

I. First, then, our text tells us THAT JESUS CHRIST WAS 
RIcH. Think not that our Saviour began to live when he was 
born of the Virgin Mary ; imagine not that he dates his exist- 
ence from the manger at Bethlehem ; remember he is the 
Eternal, he is before all things, and by him all things consist. 
There was never a time in which there was not God. And 
just so, there was never a period in which there was not 
Christ Jesus our Lord. He is self-existent, hath no beginning 


CONDESCENSION OF CHRIST. $11 


of days, neither end of years; he is the immortal, invisible, 
the only wise God, our Saviour. Now, in the past eternity 
which had elapsed before his mission to this world, we are 
told that Jesus Christ was rich; and to those of us who be- 
lieve his glories and trust in his divinity, it is not hard to see 
how he was so. Jesus was rich in possessions. Lift up thine 
eye, believer, and for a moment review the riches of my Lord 
Jesus, before he condescended to become poor for thee. Be- 
hold hin, sitting upon his throne and declaring his own all- 
sufficiency. ‘If I were hungry, I would not tell thee, for 
the cattle on a thousand hills are mine. Mine are the hidden 
treasures of gold; mine are the pearls that the diver can not 
reach; mine every precious thing that earth hath seen.” 
The Lord Jesus might have said, ‘‘I can stretch my sceptre 
frum the east even to the west, and all is mine; the whole 
of this world, and yon worlds that glitter in far off space, all 
are’ mine. The illimitable expanse of unmeasured space, 
filled as it is with worlds that I have made, all this is mine. 
Fly upward, and thou canst not reach the summit of the hill 
of my dominions; dive downward, and thou canst not enter 
into the innermost depths of my sway. From the highest 
throne in glory to the lowest pit of hell, all, all is mine 
without exception. I can put the broad arrow of my king- 
dom upon everything that I have made.” 

But, he had besides that which makes men richer still. 
We have heard of kings in olden times who were fabulously 
rich, and when their riches were summed up, we read in the 
old romances, ‘‘ And this man was possessed of the philoso- 
pher’s stone, whereby he turned all things into gold.” 
Surely all the treasures that he had before were as nothing 
compared with this precious stone that brought up the rear. 
Now, whatever might be the wealth of Christ in things 
created, he had the power of creation, and therein lay his 
boundless wealth. If he had pleased he could have spoken 
worlds into existence; he had but to lift his finger, and a 


312 CHARLES H. SPURGEON. 


new universe as boundless as the present would have leaped 
into existence. At the will of his mind, millions of angels 
would have stood before him, legions of bright spirits would 
have flashed into being. He spake, and it was done; he 
commanded, and it stood fast. He who said, ‘ Light 
be,” and light was, had power to say to all things, “ Be,” 
and they should be. Herein, then, lay his riches; this 
creating power was one of the brightest jewels of his crown. 

We call men rich, too, who have honor, and though men 
have never so much wealth, yet if they be in disgrace and 
shame, they must not reckon themselves among the rich. 
But. our Lord Jesus had honor, honor such as none but a 
divine being could receive. When he sat upon his throne, 
before he relinquished the glorious mantle of his sovereignty 
to become a man, all earth was filled with his glory. He 
could look both beneath and all around him, and the inscrip- 
tion, ‘Glory be unto God,” was written over all space; day 
and night the smoking incense of praise ascended before him 
from golden viols held by spirits who bowed in reverence; 
the harps of myriads of cherubim and seraphim continually 
thrilled with his praise, and the voices of all those mighty 
hosts were ever eloquent in adoration. It may be, that on 
set days the princes from the far off realms, the kings, the 
mighty ones of his boundless realms, came to the court of 
Christ, and brought each his annual revenue. Oh, who can 
tell but that in the vast eternity, at certain grand eras, the 
great bell was rung, and all the mighty hosts that were cre- 
ated gathered together in solemn review before his throne? 
Who can tell the high holiday that was kept in the court of 
heaven when these bright spirits bowed before his throne in 
joy and gladness, and, all united, raised their voices in shouts 
and hallelujahs such as mortal ear hath never heard? Oh, 
can ye tell the depths of the rivers of praise that flowed hard 
by the city of God? Can ye imagine to yourselves the sweet- 
ness of that harmony that perpetually poured into the 


CONDESCENSION OF CARIST. 318 


ear of Jesus, Messias, King, Eternal, equal with God his 
Father? No; at the thought of the glory of his kingdom, 
and the riches and majesty of his power, our souls are spent 
within us, our words fail, we cannot utter the tithe of his 
glories. 

Nor was he poor in any other sense. He that hath wealth 
on earth, and honor too, is poor if he hath not love. I would 
rather be the pauper, dependent upon charity, and have love, 
than I would be the prince, despised and hated, whose death 
is looked for as a boon. Without love, man is poor—give 
him all the diamonds, and pearls, and gold that mortal hath 
conceived. But Jesus was not poor in love. When he came 
to earth, he did not come to get our love because his soul was 
solitary. Oh no, his Father had a full delight in him from 
all eternity. The heart of Jehovah, the first person of the 
Sacred Trinity, was divinely, immutably linked to him; he 
was beloved of the Father and of the Holy Spirit; the three 
persons took a sacred complacency and delight in each other. 
And besides that, how was he loved by those bright spirits 
who had not fallen! I cannot tell what countless orders and 
creatures there are created who still stand fast in obedience 
to God. It is not possible for us to know whether there are, 
or not, as many races of created beings as we know there are 
created men on earth. We cannot tell but that in the 
' boundless regions of space, there are worlds inhabited by be- 
ings infinitely superior to us; but certain it is, there were 
the holy angels, and they loved our Saviour ; they stood day 
and night with wings outstretched, waiting for his commands, 
hearkening to the voice of his word; and when he bade them 
fly, there was love in their countenance, and joy in their 
hearts. They loved to serve him, and it is not all fiction that 
when there was war in heaven, and when God cast out the 
devil and his legions, then the elect angels showed their love 
to him, being valiant in fight and strong in power. He 


314 CHARLES H. SPURGEON 


wanted not our love to make him happy, he was rich enough 
in love without us. 

Now, though a spirit from the upper world should come to 
tell you of the riches of Jesus he could not do it. Gabriel, 
in thy flights thou hast mounted higher than my imagination 
dares to follow thee, but thou hast never gained the summit 
of the throne of God. 


“Dark with insufferable light thy skirts appear.” 


Jesus, who is he that could look upon the brow of thy 
Majesty, who is he that could comprehend the strength of 
the arm of thy might? Thou art God, thou art infinite, and 
we poor finite things, are lost in thee. The insect of an 
hour cannot comprehend thyself. We bow before thee, we 
adore thee ; thou art God over all, blessed for ever. But as 
for the comprehension of thy boundless riches, as for being 
able to tell thy treasures, or to reckon up thy wealth, that 
were impossible. All we know is, that the wealth of God, 
that the treasures of the infinite, that the riches of 
eternity, were all thine own: thou wast rich beyond all 
thought. 

II. The Lord Jesus Christ, then, was rich. We all believe 
that, though none of us can truly speak it forth. Oh, how 
surprised angels were, when they were first informed that 
Jesus Cirist, the Prince of Light and Majesty, intended to 
shroud himself in clay and become a babe, and live and die! 
We know not how it was first mentioned to the angels, but 
when the rumor first began to get afloat among the sacred 
hosts, you may imagine what strange wonderment there was. 
What! was it true that he whose crown was all bedight with 
stars, would lay that crown aside? What! was it certain 
that he about whose shoulders was cast the purple of the 
universe, would become a man dressed in a peasant’s gar- 
ment? Could it be true that he who was everlasting and 
immortal, would one day be nailed to a cross? Oh, how 


CONDESCENSION OF CHRIST. 315 


their wonderment increased! They desired to look into it. 
And when he descended from on high, they followed him ; 
for Jesus was ‘‘seen of angels,” and seen in a special sense, 
for they looked upon him in rapturous amazement, wonder- 
ing what it all could mean. “He for our sakes became 
poor.’ Do you see him as on that day of heaven’s eclipse 
he did ungird his majesty? Oh, can ye conceive the yet 
increasing wonder of the heavenly hosts when the deed was 
actually done, when they saw the tiara taken off, when they 
saw him unbind his girdle of stars, and cast away his san- . 
dals of gold? Can ye conceive it, when he ‘said to them, 
“‘T do not disdain the womb of the virgin; I am going down 
to earth to become aman’? Can ye picture them as they 
_ declared they would follow him! Yes, they followed him as 
near as the world would permit them. And when they came 
to earth they began to sing, ‘‘ Glory to God in the highest, 
on earth peace, good will toward men.”’ Nor would they go 
away till they had made the shepherds wonder, and till 
heaven had hung out new stars in honor of the new-born 
King. And now wonder, ye angels, the Infinite has become 
an infant ; he, upon whose shoulders the universe doth hang, 
hangs at his mother’s breast ; he who created all things, and 
bears up the pillars of creation, hath now become so weak 
that he must be carried by a woman! And oh, wonder, ye 
that knew him in his riches, whilst ye admire his poverty ! 
Where’ sleeps the new-born King? Had he the best room in 
Cesar’s palace? hath a cradle of gold been prepared for 
him, and pillows of down, on which to rest his head? No, 
where the ox fed, in the dilapidated stable, in the manger, 
there the Saviour lies, swathed in the swaddling bands of the 
children of poverty! Nor there doth he rest long; on a 
sudden his mother must carry him to Egypt; he goeth there, 
and becometh a stranger in a strange land. When he comes 
back, see him that made the worlds handle the hammer and 
the nails, assisting his father in the trade of a carpenter ! 


316 CHARLES H. SPURGEON. 


Mark him who has put the stars on high, and made them 
glisten in the night; mark him without one star of glory 
upon his brow—a simple child, as other children. Yet, © 
leave for a while the scenes of his childhood and his earlier 
life; see him when he becomes a man, and now ye may say, 
indeed, that for our sakes he did become poor. Never was 
there a poorer man than Christ; he was the prince of 
poverty. He was the reverse of Croesus—he might be on the 
top of the hill of riches, Christ stood in the lowest vale of 
poverty. Look at his dress, it is woven from the top through- 
out, the garment of the poor! As for his food, he often- 
times did hunger; and always was dependent upon the 
charity of others for the relief of his wants! He who scat- 
tered the harvest o’er the broad acres of the world, had not 
sometimes wherewithal to stay the pangs of hunger? He 
who digged the springs of the ocean, sat upon a well and 
said to a Samaritan woman, “‘ Give me to drink!’ He rode 
in no chariot, he walked his weary way, foot sore, o’er the 
flints of Galilee! He had not where to lay his head. He 
looked upon the fox as it hurried to its burrow, and the fowl 
as it went to its resting-place, and he said, “‘ Foxes have 
holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but I, the Son of 
man, have not where to lay my head.’”’ He who had once 
been waited on by angels, becomes the servant of servants, 
takes a towel, girds himself, and washes his disciples’ feet! 
He who was once honored with the hallelujahs of ages, is 
now spit upon and despised! He who was loved by his 
Father, and had abundance of the wealth of affection, could 
say, “‘He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel 
against me.” Oh, for words to picture the humiliation of 
Christ! What leagues of distance between him that sat 
upon the throne, and him that died upon the cross! Oh, 
who can tell the mighty chasm between yon heights of glory, 
and the cross of deepest woe! ‘Trace him, Christian, he has 
left thee his manger to show thee how God came down to 


CONDESCENSION OF CHRIST. 317 


man. He hath bequeathed thee his cross, to show thee how 
man can ascend to God. Follow him, follow him, all his 
journey through; begin with him in the wilderness of 
temptation, see him fasting there, and hungering with the wild 
beasts around him; trace him along his weary way, as the 
Man of Sorrows, and acquainted with grief. He is the by- 
word of the drunkard, he is the song of the scorner, and he 
is hooted at by the malicious; see him as they point their 
finger at him, and call him ‘‘ drunken man and wine-bibber !” 
Follow him along his via dolorosa, until at last you meet him 
among the olives of Gethsemane; see him sweating great 
drops of blood! Follow him to the pavement of Gabbatha ; 
see him pouring out rivers of gore beneath the cruel whips of 
Roman soldiers! With weeping eye follow him to the cross 
of Calvary, see him nailed there! Mark his poverty, so 
poor that they have stripped him naked from head to foot, 
and exposed him to the face of the sun! So poor, that when 
he asked them for water they gave him vinegar to drink ! 
So poor that his unpillowed head is girt with thorns in death! 
Oh, Son of man, I know not which to admire most, thine 
height of glory, or thy depths of misery! Oh, Man, slain 
for us, shall we not exalt thee? God over all, blessed for 
ever, shall we not give thee the loudest song? ‘‘ He was 
rich, yet for our sakes he became poor.” If I had a tale to 
tell you this day, of some king, who, out of love to some 
fair maiden, left his kingdom and became a peasant like her- 
self, ye would stand and wonder, and would listen to the 
charming tale; but when I tell of God concealing his 
dignity to become our Saviour, our hearts are scarcely 
touched. Ah, my friends, we know the tale so well, we have 
heard it so often; and, alas, some of us tell it so badly that 
we cannot expect that you would be as interested in it as 
the subject doth demand. But surely, as it is said of some 
great works of architecture, that though they be seen every 
morning, there is always something fresh to wonder at; so 


318 CHARLES H. SPURGEON. 


we may say of Christ, that though we saw him every day, 
we should always see fresh reason to love, and wonder, 
and adore. ‘‘ He was rich, yet for your sakes he became 
poor.” 

I have thought that there is one peculiarity about the poy- 
erty of Christ, that ought not to be forgotten by us. Those 
who were nursed upon the lap of want feel less the woes of 
their condition. But I have met with others whose poverty I 
could pity. They were once rich; their very dress which 
now hangs about them in tatters, tells you that they once 
stood foremost in the ranks of life. You meet them amongst 
the poorest of the poor; you pity them more than those who 
have been born and bred to poverty, because they have known 
something better. Amongst all those who are poor, I have 
always found the greatest amount of suffering in those who 
had seen better days. | 

I can remember, even now, the look of some who have said 
to me when they have received assistance—and I have given 
it as delicately as I could, lest it should look like charity— 
‘“‘ Ah, sir, I have known better days.” And the tear stood 
in the eye, and the heart was smitten at bitter recollections. 
The least slight to such a person, or even too unmasked a 
kindness, becomes like a knife cutting the heart. “I have 
known better days,” sounds like a knell over their joys. And 
verily our Lord Jesus might have said in all his sorrows, “I 
have known better days than these.’’ Methinks when he was 
tempted of the devil in the wilderness, it must have been 
~ hard in him to have restrained himself from dashing the devil 
into pieces. If I had been the Son of God, methinks, feeling 
as I do now, if that devil had tempted me, I should have 
dashed him into the nethermost hell, in the twinkling of an 
eye! And then conceive the patience our Lord must have 
had, standing on the pinnacle of the temple, when the devil 
said, ‘“‘ Fall down and worship me.’’ He would not touch 
him, the vile deceiver, but let him do what he pleased. Oh! 


CONDESCENSION OF CHRIST. 319 


what might of misery and love there must have been in the 
Saviour’s heart when he was spit upon by the men he had 
created; when the eyes he himself had filled with vision 
looked on him with scorn, and when the tongues, to which 
he himself had given utterance, hissed and blasphemed him ! 
Oh, my friends, if the Saviour had felt as we do, and I doubt 
not he did feel in some measure as we do—only by great 
patience he curbed himself—methinks he might have swept 
them all away ; and, as they said, he might have come down 
from the cross, and delivered himself, and destroyed them 
utterly. It was mighty patience that could bear to tread 
this world beneath his feet, and not to crush it, when it so 
ill-treated its Redeemer. You marvel at the patience which 
restrained him; you marvel also at the poverty he must 
have felt, the poverty of spirit, when they rebuked him and 
he reviled them not again; when they scoffed him, and yet 
he said, ‘‘ Father, forgive them, for they know not what 
they do.” He had seen brighter days; that made his misery 
more bitter, and his poverty more poor. 

III. Well, now we come to the third point—WHY DID THE 
SAVIOUR COME TO DIE AND BE POOR? Hear this, ye sons of 
Adam—the Scripture says, ‘‘ For your sakes he became poor, 
that ye through his poverty might be made rich.”” For your 
sakes. Now, when I address you as a great congregation, 
you will not feel the beauty of this expression, “‘ For your 
sake.’’ Husband and wife, walking in the fear of God, let 
me take you by the hand and look you in the face, let me 
repeat those words, “for your sakes he became poor.” 
Young man, let a brother of thine own age, look on thee and 
repeat these words, ‘‘ Though he was rich, yet for your sake 
he became poor.” Gray-headed believer, let me look on you 
and say the same, ‘“ For your sake he became poor.’ Breth- 
ren, take the word home, and see if it does not melt you— 
“Though he was rich, yet for my sake he became poor.” 
Beg for the influences of the Spirit upon that truth, and it 


320 CHARLES H. SPURGEON. 


will make your heart devout and your spirit loving—‘ I the 
chief of sinners am, yet for my sake he died.” Come, let 
me hear you speak; let us bring the sinner here, and let 
him soliloquize—‘“ I cursed him, I blasphemed, and yet for 
my sake he was made poor; I scoffed at his ministers, I 
broke his Sabbath, yet for my sake was he made poor. 
What! Jesus, couldst thou die for one who was not worth 
thy having? Couldst thou shed thy blood for one who 
would have shed thy blood, if it had been in his power? 
What! couldst thou die for one so worthless, so vile ?”’ 
“Yes, yes,” says Jesus, ‘I shed that blood for thee.” Now 
let the saint speak: “I,” he may say, “have professed 
to love him, but how cold my love, how little have I served 
him! How far have I lived from him; I have not had 
sweet communion with him as I ought to have had. When 
have I been spending and spent in his service? And yet, 
my Lord, thou dost say, ‘for thy sake I was made poor. 
“Yes,” saith Jesus, “‘see me in my miseries; see me in my 
agonies; see me in my death—all these I suffered for thy 
sake.”’ Wilt thou not love him who loved thee to this great 
excess, and became poor for thy sake? 

That, however, is not the point to which we wish to bring 
you, just now; the point is this, the reason why Christ died 
was, ‘‘that we through his poverty might be rich.” He be- 
came poor from his riches, that our poverty might become 
rich out of his poverty. Brethren, we have now a joyful 
theme before us—those who are partakers of the Saviour’s 
blood are rich. All those for whom the Saviour died, having 
believed in his name and given themselves to him, are this 
day rich. And yet I have some of you here who cannot call 
~ a foot of land your own. You have nothing to call your own 
to-day, you know not how you will be supported through an- 
other week; you are poor, and yet if you be a child of God, 
I do know that Christ’s end is answered in you; you are 
rich. No, I did not mock you when I said you were rich: 


59 e 


CONDESCENSION OF CHRIST. 321 


I did not taunt you—you are. You are really rich; you 
are rich in possessions; you have in your possession 
now things more costly than gems, more valuable than gold 
and silver. ‘‘ Silver and gold, have I none,” thou mayest say ; 
but if thou canst say afterward, “‘ Christ is all,” thou hast 
outspoken all that the man can say who had piles of gold 
and silver. ‘ But,” thou sayest, “I have nothing.” Man, 
thou hast all things. Knowest thou not what Paul said? 
He declares that “things present and things to come, and 
this world, and life and death, all are yours and ye are - 
Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.” The great machinery of 
providence has no wheel which does not revolve for you. 
The great economy of grace with all its fullness, is yours. 
Remember that adoption, justification, sanctification, are all 
yours. Thou hast everything that heart can wish in 
spiritual things; and thou hast everything that is necessary 
for this life; for you know who hath said, ‘“‘ having food and 
raiment, let us therewith be content.’’ You are rich; rich 
with true riches, and not with the riches of a dream. There 
are times when men by night do scrape gold and silver to- 
gether, like shells upon the sea shore; but when they wake 
in the morning they find themselves penniless. But, yours 
are everlasting treasures; yours are solid riches. When the 
sun of eternity shall have melted the rich man’s gold away, 
yours shall endure. A rich man has a cistern full of riches, 
but a poor saint has got a fowntain of mercy, and he is 
the richest who has a fountain. Now, if my neighbor be a 
rich man, he may have as much wealth as ever he pleases, it 
is only a cistern full, it will soon be exhausted; but a Chris- 
tian has a fountain that ever flows, and let him draw, draw 
on for ever, the fountain will still keep on flowing. However 
large may be the stagnant pool, if it be stagnant, it is but 
of little worth; but the flowing stream, though it seem to be 
but small, needs but time, and it will have produced an im- 
mense volume of precious water. Thou art never to have a 
11 x 


322 CHARLES H. SPURGEON. 


great pool of riches, they are always to keep on flowing to 
thee; ‘“‘ Thy bread shall be given thee, and thy water shall 
be sure.’ As old William Huntingdon says, ‘‘ The Chris- 
tian has a hand-basket portion. Many a.man,’when his 
daughter marries, does not give her much, but he says to 
her, ‘I shall send you.a sack of flour one day, and so-and-so 
the next day, and now and then a sum of gold; and as long 
as I live I will always send you something.’ Says he, ‘ She 
will get a great deal more than her sister, who has had a 
thousand pounds down.’ That is how my God deals with me; 
he gives to the rich man all at once, but to me day by day.” 
Ah, Egypt, thou wert rich when thy granaries were full, 
but those granaries might be emptied; Israel was far 
richer when they could not see their granaries, but 
only saw the manna drop from heaven, day by day. Now, 
Christian, that is thy portion—the portion of the foun- 
tain always flowing, and not of the cistern-full, and soon to 
be emptied. 

But remember, O saint, that thy wealth does not all lie in 
thy possession just now; remember thou art rich in promises. 
Let a man be never so poor as to the metal that he hath, let 
him have in his possession promissory notes from rich and 
true men, and he says, ‘“‘I have no gold in my purse, but 
here is.a note for such-and-such a sum—I know the signature 
—I can trust the firm—lI am rich, though I have no metal 
in hand.’ And so the Christian can say, “If I have no 
riches in possession, I have the promise of them; my God 
hath said, ‘No good thing will I withhold from them that 
walk uprightly,—that is a promise that makes me rich. 
He has told me, ‘ My bread shall be given me, and my water 
shall be sure.’ I cannot doubt his signature, I know his 
word to be authentic; and as for his faithfulness, I would 
not so dishonor him as to think he would break his pro- 
mise. No, the promise is as good as the thing itself. 


CONDESCENSION OF CHRIST. 323 


If it be God’s promise, it is just as sure that I shall have it, 
as if I had it.” 

But then the Christian is very rich in reversion. When a 
certain old man dies that I know of, I believe that I shall be 
so immensely rich that I shall dwell in a place that is paved 
with gold, the walls of which are builded with precious stones. 
But, my friends, you have all got an old man to die, and 
when he is dead, if you are followers of Jesus, you will come 
in for your inheritance. You know who that old man is, he 
is very often spoken of in Scripture; may the old man in 
you die daily, and may the new man be strengthened in you. 
When that old man of corruption, your old nature, shall 
totter into its grave, then you will come in for your pro- 
perty. Christians are like heirs, they have not much in 
their minority, and they are minors now; but when they 
come of age, they shall have the whole of their estate. If 
I meet a minor, he says, “That is my property.” ‘ You 
cannot sell it, sir; you cannot lay hold of it.” ‘ No,” says 
he, “I know I*cannot; but it is mine when I am one-and- 
twenty, I shall then have complete control; but at the same 
time, it is as really mine now as it ever will be. Ihave a 
legal right to it, and though my guardians take care of it 
for me, it is mine, not theirs.”” And now, Christian, 
in heaven there is a crown of gold which is thine to- 
day; it will be no more thine when thou hast it on thy head 
than it is now. 

I remember to have heard it reported that I once spoke 
in metaphor, and bade Christians look at all the crowns 
hanging in rows in heaven—very likely I did say it—but if 
not, I will say it now. Up, Christian, see the crowns all 
ready, and mark thine own; stand thou and wonder at it; 
see with what pearls it is bedight, and how heavy it is with 
gold! And that is for thy head, thy poor aching head; thy 
poor tortured brain shall yet have that crown for its array- 
ing! And see that garment, it is stiff with gems, and white 


324 °- CHARLES H. SPURGEON. 


like snow; and that is for thee! When thy week-day gar- 
ment shall be done with, this shall be the raiment of thy 
everlasting Sabbath. When thou hast worn out this poor 
body, there remaineth for thee, “A house not made with 
hands, eternal in the heavens.’”’ Up to the summit, Chris- 
tian, and survey thine inheritance; and when thou hast 
surveyed it all, when thou hast seen thy present possessions, 
thy promised possessions, thine entailed possessions, then 
remember that all these were bought by the poverty of thy 
Saviour! Look thou upon all thou hast, and say, “ Christ 
bought them for me.’’ Look thou on every promise, and see 
the bloodstains on it ; yea, look too, on the harps and crowns 
of heaven, and read the bloody purchase! Remember, thou 
couldst never have been anything but a damned sinner, 
unless Christ had bought thee! Remember, if he had 
remained in heaven, thou wouldst for ever have remained in 
hell; unless he had ‘shrouded and eclipsed his own honor, 
thou wouldst never have had a ray of light to shine upon 
thee. Therefore, bless his dear name, extol him, trace 
every stream to the fountain; and bless him who is the 
source, and the fountain of everything thou hast. Brethren, 
‘“‘ Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though 
he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye 
through his poverty might be rich.”’ 

IV. I’have not done, I have three things now to say, and 
I shall say them as briefly as possible. 

The first 7s a doctrine; the doctrine is this: If Christ in 
his poverty made us rich, what will he do now that he is 
glorified? If the Man of Sorrows saved my soul, will the 
man now exalted suffer it to perish? If the dying Saviour 
availed for our salvation, should not the living, interceding 
Saviour, abundantly secure it ? 


“He lived, he lives and sits above, 
For ever interceding there ; 
What shall divide us from his love, 
Or what shall sink us in despair ?’” 


CONDESCENSION OF CHRIST. . 326 


If when the nail was in thine hand, O Jesus, thou didst rout 
all hell, canst thou be defeated now that thou hast grasped 
the sceptre? If, when the thorn-crown was put about thy 
brow, thou didst prostrate the dragon, canst thou be overcome 
and conquered now that the acclamations of angels are 
ascending to thee? No, my brethren, we can _ trust 
the glorified Jesus; we can repose ourselves on his bo- 
som ; if he was so strong in poverty, what must he be in riches ? 

The next thing was a question, that question was a simple 
one. My hearer, hast thou been made rich by Christ’s pov- 
erty? Thou sayest, “I am good enough without Christ; I 
want no Saviour.” Ah, thou art like her of old, who said, 
“7 am rich and increased in goods, and have need of no- 
thing, whereas, saith the Lord, ‘ Thou art naked, and poor, 
and miserable.’’’ O ye that live by good works, and think 
that ye shall go to heaven because you are as good as others ; 
all the merits you can ever earn yourselves, are good for 
nothing. All that human nature ever made, turns to 
a blot and a curse. If those are your riches, you are 
no saints. But you can say this morning, my hearers, 
“Tam by nature without anything, and God has by the 
power of his Spirit taught me my nothingness.” 

My brother, my sister, hast thou taken Christ to be thine 
all in all? Canst thou say this day, with an unfaltering 
tongue, ‘“‘ My Lord, my God, I have nothing; but thou art 
my all?’? Come, I beseech thee, do not shirk the question. 
Thou art careless, heedless ; answer it, then, in the negative. 
But when thou hast answered it, I beseech thee, beware of 
what thou hast said. Thou art sinful, thou feelest it. Come, 
I beseech thee, and lay hold on Jesus. Remember, Christ 
came to make those rich, that have nothing of their own. 
My Saviour is a physician; if you can heal yourself, he will 
have nothing to do with you. Remember, my Saviour came 
to clothe the naked. He will clothe you, if you have not a 
rag of your own; but unless you let him do it from head to 


326 CHARLES H. SPURGEON. 


foot, he will have nothing to do with you. Christ says he 
will never have a partner; he will do all, or none. Come 
then, hast thou given up all to Christ ? Hast thou no reliance 
and trust save in the cross of Jesus? Then thou hast 
answered the question well. Be happy, be joyous; if 
death should surprise thee the next hour, thou art secure. 
Go on thy way, and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. 

And now I close with the third thing, which was an exhor- 
tation. Sinner, dost thou this morning feel thy poverty ? 
Then look to Christ’s poverty. O ye that are to-day trou- 
bled on account of sin—and there are many such here— 
God has not let you alone; he has been ploughing your heart 
with the sharp ploughshare of conviction; you are this day 
saying, “‘ What must I do to be saved?’ You would give 
all you have, to have an interest in Jesus Christ. Your soul 
is this day sore broken and tormented. O sinner, if thou 
wouldst find salvation, thou must find it in the veins of 
Jesus. Now, wipe that tear from thine eye a moment, and 
look here. Dost thou see him high, where the cross rears 
its terrible tree? ‘There he is. Dost see him? Mark his 
head. See the thorn-crown, and the beaded drops still 
standing on his temples. Mark his eyes; they are just 
closing in death. Canst see the lines of agony, so desperate 
in woe? Dost see his hands? See the streamlets of blood 
flowing down them. Hark, he is about to speak. ‘“‘ My 
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!’’ Didst hear 
that, sinner? Pause a moment longer, take another survey 
of his person; how emaciated his body, and how sick his 
spirit! Look at him. But hark, he is about to speak again 
—‘“‘It is finished.” What means he by that? He means, 
that he has finished thy salvation. Look thou to him, and 
find salvation there. Remember, to be saved, all that God 
wants of a penitent, is to look to Jesus. My life for this— 
if you will risk your all on Christ, you shall be saved. I 
will be Christ’s bondsman to-day, to be bound for ever if he 


CONDESCENSION OF CHRIST. won 


break his promise. He has said, “‘ Look unto me, and be ye 
saved, all the ends of the earth.” It is not your hands that 
will save you; it must be your eyes. Look from those works 
whereby you hope to be saved. No longer strive to weave a 
garment that will not hide your sin, throw away that shut- 
tle; it is only filled with cobwebs. What garment can you 
weave with that? Look thou ‘to him, and thou art saved. 
Never sinner looked, and was lost. Dost mark that eye 
there? One glance will save thee, one glance will set thee 
free. Dost thou say, “Iam a guilty sinner”? Thy guilt 
is the reason why I bid thee look. Dost thou say, “I can- 
not look’? ? Oh, may God help thee to look now. Remem- 
ber, Christ will not reject thee; thou mayest reject him. 
Remember now, there is the cup of mercy put to thy lip by 
the hand of Jesus. I know, if thou feelest thy need, Satan 
may tempt thee not to drink, but he will not prevail; thou 
wilt put thy lip feebly and faintly, perhaps, to it. But oh, 
do but sip it; and the first draught shall give thee bliss; 
and the deeper thou shalt drink, the more of heaven shalt 
thou know. Sinner, believe on Jesus Christ ; hear the whole 
gospel preached to thee. It is written in God’s Word, “ He 
that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.”” Hear me 
translate it—He that believeth and is immersed shall be 
saved. Believe thou, trust thyself on the Saviour, make a 
profession of thy faith in baptism, and then thou mayest 
rejoice in Jesus, that he hath saved thee. But remember 
not to make a profession till thou hast believed: remember, 
baptism is nothing, until thou hast faith. Remember, it is a 
farce and a falsehood, until thou hast first believed; and 
afterwards, it is nothing but the profession of thy faith. 
Oh, believe that; cast thyself upon Christ, and thou art 
saved for ever! The Lord add his blessing, for the Saviour’s 
sake. Amen. 


Did bs 
ON ENDURING PERSECUTION FOR CHRIST. 


CALVIN. 


[Joun Caxvin, a chief reformer and theologian—well termed by 
Dr. Mason ‘‘the Paul of the Reformation ’’—was born at Noyon in 
Picardy, France, July 10th 1509, and died in Geneva, May 27th 1564. 
He graduated from the University of Paris, studied law and Greek at 
Orleans, and became an ardent student of the Scriptures. Converted 
to the reformed doctrines, he gave up the Roman Catholic chaplaincy 
conferred on him in his childhood, and eloquently preached the free- 
ness of Gospel salvation. Persecuted in one city, he fled to another, 
everywhere bearing testimony to the power of God’s grace. In his 
twenty-fifth year, he issued his “ Institutes of the Christian Religion,” 
a masterly statement and vindication of evangelical doctrines as freed 
from the traditions and perversions of the papal theologians. In 1535 
he began his ministerial labors and ecclesiastical rule in Geneva, 
which continued nearly thirty years, excepting a three years’ banish- 
ment from 1538. By his firm control Geneva became the stronghold 
of French Protestantism, a city of refuge from. persecution and death 
for all who longed to worship God with a pure conscience. One of 
the profoundest theologians, and a most able expositor of the Serip- 
tures, Calvin was also an extremely conscientious, earnest, and ab- 
stemious man. His works, in fifty-one volumes, have been published 
by the Calvin Translation Society, Edinburgh. Only four of his Ser- 
mons areextant. They havea closeness of thought and homeliness of 
illustration, above all abounding in inspiring exhortations for each to 
stand firm as a witness for Gospel truth, at a time when monstrous 
cruelties were heaped upon Huguenots and Protestants. | 


“ Le us go forth out of the tents after Christ, bearing his reproach.”— 
Hebrews xiii. 13. 


Au the exhortations which can be given us to suffer 
patiently for the name of Jesus Christ, and in defence of 
the gospel, will have no effect, if we do not feel assured of 
the cause for which we fight. For when we are called to 


part with life, it is absolutely necessary to know on what 
(328) 


ON ENDURING PERSECUTION FOR CHRIST. $29 


grounds. The firmness necessary we cannot possess, unless 
it be founded on certainty of faith. 

It is true that persons may be found who will foolishly 
expose themselves to death in maintaining some absurd opin- 
ions and reveries conceived by their own brain, but such 
impetuosity is more to be regarded as frenzy than as Chris- 
tian zeal; and, in fact, there is neither firmness nor sound 
sense in those who thus, at a kind of hap-hazard, cast them- 
selves away. But however this may be, it is in a good 
cause only that God can acknowledge us as his martyrs. 
Death is common to all, and the children of God are con- 
demned to ignominy and tortures just as criminals are; but 
God makes the distinction between them, inasmuch as he 
cannot deny his truth. On our part, then, it is requisite 
that we have sure and infallible evidence of the doctrine 
which we maintain ; and hence, as I have said, we cannot be 
rationally impressed by any exhortations which we receive 
to suffer persecution for the gospel, if no true certainty of 
faith has been imprinted in our hearts. For to hazard our 
life upon a peradventure is not natural, and though we were 
to do it, it would only be rashness, not Christian cou- 
rage. In a word, nothing that we do will be approved of 
God if we are not thoroughly persuaded that it is for him 
and his cause we suffer persecution, and the world is our 
enemy. 

Now, when I speak of such persuasion, I mean not merely 
that we must know how to distinguish between true religion 
and the abuses or follies of men, but also that we must be 
thoroughly persuaded of the heavenly life, and the crown 
which is promised us above, after we shall have fought here 
below. Let us understand, then, that both of these requi- 
sites are necessary, and cannot be separated from each other. 
The points, accordingly, with which we must commence, are 
these :—_We must know well what our Christianity is, what 
the faith which we have to hold and follow—what the rule 


330 JOHN CALVIN. 


which God has given us; and we must be so well furnished 
with such instructions as to be able boldly to condemn all 
the falsehoods,. errors, and superstitions, which Satan has 
introduced to corrupt the pure simplicity of the doctrine of ' 
God. Hence, we ought not to be surprised that, in the 
present day, we see so few persons disposed to suffer for the 
Gospel, and that the greater part of those who call them- 
selves Christians know not what it is. For all are as it were 
lukewarm; and instead of making it their business to hear 
or read, count it enough to have had some slight taste of 
Christian faith. This is the reason why there is so little 
decision, and why those who are assailed immediately fall 
away. ‘This fact should stimulate us to inquire more dili- 
gently into divine truth, in order to be well assured with 
regard to it. 

Still, however, to be well informed and grounded is not 
the whole that is necessary. For we see some who seem to 
be thoroughly imbued with sound doctrine, and who, not- 
withstanding, have no more zeal or affection than if they had 
never known any more of God than some fleeting fancy. 
Why is this? Just because they have never comprehended 
the majesty of the Holy Scriptures. And, in fact, did we, 
such as we are, consider well that it is God who speaks to 
us, it is certain that we would listen more attentively, and 
with greater reverence. If we would think that in reading 
Scripture we are in the school of angels, we would be far 
more careful and desirous to profit by the doctrine which is 
propounded to us. 

We now see THE TRUE METHOD OF PREPARING TO SUFFER 
FOR THE GOSPEL. First, We must have profited so far in the 
school of God as to be decided in regard to true religion 
and the doctrine which we are to hold; and we must despise 
all the wiles and impostures of Satan, and all human inven- 
tions, as things not only frivolous but also carnal, inasmuch 
as they corrupt Christian purity ; therein differin g, like true 


CN ENDURING PERSECUTION FOR CHRIST, 331 


martyrs of Christ, from the fantastic persons who suffer for 
mere absurdities. Second, Feeling assured of the good 
cause, we must be inflamed, accordingly, to follow God 
whithersoever he may call us: his word must have such 
authority with us as it deserves, and, having withdrawn from 
this world, we must feel as it were enraptured in seeking the 
heavenly life. 

But it is more than strange, that though the light of God 
is shining more brightly than it ever did before, there is a 
lamentable want of zeal! If the thought does not fill us 
with shame, so much the worse. For we must shortly come 
before the great Judge, where the iniquity which we endea- 
vor to hide will be brought forward with such upbraidings, 
that we shall be utterly confounded. For, if we are obliged 
to bear testimony to God, according to the measure of the 
knowledge which he has given us, to what is it owing, I 
would ask, that we are so cold and timorous in entering into 
battle, seeing that God has so fully manifested himself at 
this time, that he may be said to have opened to us and 
displayed before us the great treasures of his secrets? May 
it not be said that we do not think we have to do with God? 
For had we any regard to his majesty we would not dare to 
turn the doctrine which proceeds from his mouth into some 
kind of philosophic speculation. In short, it is impossible 
to deny that it is to our great shame, not to say fearful con- 
demnation, that we have so well known the truth of God, 
and have so little courage to maintain it ! 

Above all, when we look to the Martyrs of past times, 
well may we detest our own cowardice! The greater part 
of those were not persons much versed in Holy Scrip- 
ture, so as to be able to dispute on all subjects. They knew 
that there was one God, whom they behoved to worship and 
serve—that they had been redeemed by the blood of Jesus 
Christ, in order that they might place their confidence of 
salvation in him and in his grace—and that, all the inventions 


382 JOHN CALVIN. 


of men being mere dross and rubbish, they ought to con- 
demn all idolatries and superstitions. In one word, their 
theology was in substance this,—There is one God who 
created all the world, and declared his will to us by Moses 
and the Prophets, and finally by Jesus Christ and his Apos- 
tles; and we have one sole Redeemer, who purchased us by 
his blood, and by whose grace we hope to be saved: All the 
idols of the world are cursed, and deserve execration. 

With a system embracing no other points than these, they 
went boldly to the flames, or to any other kind of death. 
They did not go in twos or threes, but in such bands, that 
the number of those who fell by the hands of tyrants is 
almost infinite! We, on our part, are such learned clerks, 
that none can be more so (so at least we think), and, in fact, 
so far as regards the knowledge of Scripture, God has so 
spread it out before us, that no former age was ever so highly 
favored. Still, after all, there is scarcely a particle of zeal. 
When men manifest such indifference, it looks as if they 
were bent on provoking the vengeance of God. 

What then should be done in order to inspire our breasts 
with true courage? We have, in the first place, to consider 
how precious the Confession of our Faith is in the sight of 
God. We little know how much God prizes it, if our life, 
which is nothing, is valued by us more highly. When it is 
so, we manifest a marvellous degree of stupidity. We can- 
not save our life at the expense of our confession, without 
acknowledging that we hold it in higher estimation than the 
honor of God and the salvation of our souls. © 

A heathen could say, that “‘It was a miserable thing to 
save life by giving up the only things which made life desir- 
able!” And yet he and others like him never knew for 
what end men are placed in the world, and why they live in 
it. It is true they knew enough to say that men ought to 
follow virtue, to conduct themselves honestly and without 
reproach ; but all their virtues were mere paint and smoke. 


ON ENDURING PERSECUTION FOR CHRIST. 333 


We know far better what the chief aim of life should be, 
namely, to glorify God, in order that he may be our glory. 
When this is not done, woe to us! And we cannot continue 
to live for a single moment upon the earth without heaping 
additional curses on our heads. Still we are not ashamed 
to purchase some few days to languish here below, renounc- 
ing the eternal kingdom by separating ourselves from him 
by whose energy we are sustained in life. 

Were we to ask the most ignorant, not to say the most 
brutish persons in the world, Why they live? they would not 
venture to answer simply, that it is to eat, and drink, and 
sleep ; for all know that they have been created for a higher 
and holier end. And what end can we find if it be not to 
honor God, and allow ourselves to be governed by him, like 
children by a good parent; so that after we have finished 
the journey of this corruptible life, we may be received 
into his eternal inheritance? Such is the principal, indeed 
the sole end. When we do not take it into account, and are 
intent on a brutish life, which is worse than a thousand 
deaths, what can we allege for our excuse? ‘To live and not 
know why, is unnatural. To reject the causes for which we 
live, under the influence of a foolish longing for a respite of 
some few days, during which we are to live in the world, 
while separated from God—I know not how to name such 
infatuation and madness ! 

But as persecution is always harsh and bitter, let us con- 
sider, How AND BY WHAT MEANS CHRISTIANS MAY BE ABLE 
TO FORTIFY THEMSELVES WITH PATIENCE, SO AS UNFLINCH- 
INGLY TO EXPOSE THEIR LIFE FOR THE TRUTH OF Gop. The 
text which we have read out, when it is properly under- 
stood, is sufficient to induce us to do so. The Apostle says, 
‘Let us go forth from the city after the Lord Jesus, bear- 
ing his reproach.” In the first place, he reminds us, although 
the swords should not be drawn over us nor the fires kindled 
to burn us, that we cannot be truly united to the Son of God 


y 


884 JOHN CALVIN. 


while we are rooted in this world. Wherefore, a Christian, 
even in repose, must always have one foot lifted to march to 
battle, and not only so, but he must have his affections with- 
drawn from the world, although his body is dwelling in it. 
Grant that this at first sight seems to us hard, still we must 
be satisfied with the words of St. Paul (1 Thess. iii. 38), 
“We are called and appointed to suffer.’ As if he had 
said, Such is our condition as Christians; this is the road by 
which we must go, if we would follow Christ. 

Meanwhile, to solace our infirmity and mitigate the vex- 
ation and sorrow which persecution might cause us, a good 
reward is held forth: In suffering for the cause of God, we 
are walking step by step after the Son of God, and have 
him for our guide. Were it simply said, that to be Chris- 
tians we must pass through all the insults of the world boldly, 
to meet death at all times and in whatever way God may be 
pleased to appoint, we might apparently have some pretext 
for replying, It is a strange road to go at a peradventure. 
But when we are commanded to follow the Lord Jesus, his 
guidance is too good and honorable to be refused. Now, in 
order that we may be more deeply moved, not only is it 
said that Jesus Christ walks before us as our Captain, but 
that we are made conformable to his image; as St. Paul 
speaks in the eighth chapter to the Romans (Rom. viii. 29), 
‘*God hath ordained all those whom he hath adopted for 
his children, to be made conformable to him who is the pat- 
tern and head of all.” 

Are we so delicate as to be unwilling to endure anything ? 
Then we must renounce the grace of God by which he has 
called us to the hope of salvation. For there are two things 
which cannot be separated—to be members of Christ, and 
to be tried by many afflictions. We certainly ought to 
prize such a conformity to the Son of God much more than 
we do. It is true, that in the world’s judgment there is 
disgrace in suffering for the gospel. But since we know 


ON ENDURING PERSECUTION FOR CHRIST. 835 


that unbelievers are blind, ought we not to have better eyes 
than they? It is ignominy to suffer from those who occupy 
the seat of justice, but St. Paul shows us by his example 
that we have to glory in scourgings for Jesus Christ, as 
marks by which God recognises us and avows us for his own. 
And we know what St. Luke narrates of Peter and John 
. (Acts v. 41), namely, that they rejoiced to have been 
‘counted worthy to suffer infamy and reproach for the name 
of the Lord Jesus.” 

Ignominy and dignity are two opposites: so says the 
world which, being infatuated, judges against all reason, and 
in this way converts the glory of God into dishonor. But, 
on our part, let us not refuse to be vilified as concerns the 
world, in order to be honored before God and his angels. 
We see what pains the ambitious take to receive the com- 
mands of a king, and what a boast they make of it. The 
Son of God presents his commands to us, and every one 
stands back! Tell me, pray, whether in so doing are we 
worthy of having anything in common with him? There is 
nothing here to attract our sensual nature, but such not- 
withstanding are the true escutcheons of nobility in the 
heavens. Imprisonment, exile, evil report, imply in men’s 
imagination whatever is to be vituperated ; but what hinders 
us from viewing things as God judges and declares them, 
Save our unbelief? Wherefore, let the Name of the Son of 
God have all the weight with us which it deserves, that we 
may learn to count it honor when he stamps his marks upon 
us: If we act otherwise our ingratitude is insupportable ! 

Were God to deal with us according to our deserts, would 
he not have just cause to chastise us daily in a thousand 
ways! Nay more, a hundred thousand deaths would not 
suffice for a small portion of our misdeeds! Now, if in his 
infinite goodness he puts all our faults under his foot and 
abolishes them, and instead of punishing us.according to 
our demerit, devises an admirable means to convert our 


336 JOHN CALVIN. 


afflictions into honor and a special privilege, inasmuch as 
through them we are taken into partnership with his Son, 
must it not be said, when we disdain such a happy state, 
that we have indeed made little progress in Christian 
doctrine ? 

Accordingly St. Peter, after exhorting us (1 Peter iv. 15) 
to walk so purely in the fear of God, as ‘not to suffer as 
thieves, adulterers, and murderers,” immediately adds, “If 
we must suffer as Christians, let us glorify God for the bless- 
ing which he thus bestows upon us.”’ It is not without 
cause he speaks thus. For who are we, I pray, to be wit- 
nesses of the truth of God, and advocates to maintain his 
cause? Here we are poor worms of the earth, creatures 
full of vanity, full of lies, and yet God employs us to defend 
his truth—an honor which pertains not even to the angels 
of heaven! May not this consideration alone well inflame 
us to offer ourselves to God to be employed in any way in 
such honorable service ? 

Many persons, however, cannot refrain from pleading 
against God, or, at least, from complaining against him for 
not better supporting their weakness. It is marvellously 
strange, they say, how God, after having chosen us for his 
children, allows us to be so trampled upon and tormented 
by the ungodly. I answer: Even were it not apparent why 
he does so, he might well exercise his authority over us, and 
fix our lot at his pleasure. But when we see that Jesus 
Christ is our pattern, ought we not, without inquiring far- 
ther, to esteem it great happiness that we are made like to 
him? God, however, makes it very apparent what the 
reasons are for which he is pleased that we should be 
persecuted. Had we nothing more than the consideration 
suggested by St. Peter (1 Peter i. 7), we were disdainful in- 
deed not to acquiesce in it. He says, ‘Since gold and silver, 
which are only corruptible metals, are purified and tested 


ON ENDURING PERSECUTION FOR CHRIST. 837 


by fire, it is but reasonable that our faith, which surpasses 
all the riches of the world, should be tried.” 

It were easy indeed for God to crown us at once without 
requiring us to sustain any combats; but as it is his plea- 
sure that until the end of the world Christ shall reign in the 
midst of his enemies (Psalm cx.), so it is also his pleasure 
that we, being placed in the midst of them, shall suffer their 
oppression and violence till he deliver us. I know, indeed, 
that the flesh kicks when it is to be brought to this point, 
but still the will of God must have the mastery. If we feel 
some repugnance in ourselves, it need not surprise us; for 
it is only toonatural for us to shun the cross. Still let us 
not fail to surmount it, knowing that God accepts our obe- 
dience, provided we bring all our feelings and wishes into 
captivity, and make them subject to him. 

When the Prophets and Apostles went to death, it was 
not without feeling within some inclination to recoil. ‘ They 
will lead thee whither thou wouldst not,’’ said our Lord 
Jesus Christ to Peter. (John xxi. 18.) When such fears of 
death arise within us, let us gain the mastery over them, or 
rather let God gain it; and meanwhile, let us feel assured 
that we offer him a pleasing sacrifice when we resist and do 
violence to our inclinations for the purpose of placing our- 
selves entirely under his command: This is the principal 
war in which God would have his people to be engaged. 
He would have them strive to suppress every rebellious 
thought and feeling which would turn them aside from the 
path to which he-points. And the consolations are so ample, 
that it may well be said, we are more than cowards if we 
give way ! | | 

In ancient times vast numbers of people, to obtain a sim- 
ple crown of leaves, refused no toil, no pain, no trouble; 
nay, it even cost them nothing to die, and yet every one of 
them fought for a peradventure, not knowing whether he 


was to gain or lose the prize. God holds forth to us the 
Y 


338 JOHN CALVIN. 


immortal crown by which we may become partakers of his 
glory: He does not mean us to fight at hap-hazard, but all 
of us have a promise of the prize for which we strive. Have 
we any cause then to decline the struggle? Do we think 
it has been said in vain, “If we die with Jesus Christ we 
shall also live with him?” (2 Tim. ii. 11.) Our triumph is 
prepared, and yet we do all we can to shun the combat. 

But it is said that all we teach on this subject is repug- 
nant to human judgment. I confess it. And hence when 
our Saviour declares, ‘“‘ Blessed are they who are persecuted 
for righteousness’ sake,” (Matt. v. 10), he gives utterance 
to a sentiment which is not easily received in the world. 
On the contrary, he wishes to account that as happiness 
which in the judgment of sense is misery. We seem to 
ourselves miserable when God leaves us to be trampled upon 
by the tyranny and cruelty of our enemies; but the error is 
that we look not to the promises of God, which assure us 
that all will turn to our good. We are cast down when we 
see the wicked stronger than we, and planting their foot on 
our throat; but such confusion should rather, as St. Paul 
says, cause us to lift up our heads. Seeing we are too much - 
disposed to amuse ourselves with present objects, God, in 
permitting the good to be maltreated, and the wicked to 
have sway, shows by evident tokens that a day is coming on 
which all that is now in confusion will be reduced to order. 
If the period seems distant, let us run to the remedy, and 
not flatter ourselves in our sin; for it is certain that we have 
no faith if we cannot carry our views forward to the coming 
of Jesus Christ. | 

To leave no means which may be fitted to stimulate us 
unemployed, God sets before us PROMISES on the one hand, 
and THREATENINGS on the other. Do we feel that the pro- 
mises have not sufficient influence, let us strengthen them 
by adding the threatenings. It is true we must be perverse 
in the extreme not to put more faith in the promises of God, 


ON ENDURING PERSECUTION FOR CHRIST. 339 


when the Lord Jesus says that he will own us as his before 
his Father, provided we confess him before men. (Matt. x. 
82; Luke xii. 8.) What should prevent us from making the 
confession which he requires? Let men do their utmost, 
they cannot do worse than murder us! and will not the 
heavenly life compensate for this? I do not here collect all 
the passages in Scripture which bear on this subject: they 
are so often reiterated that we ought to be thoroughly satis- 
fied with them. When the struggle comes, if three or four 
passages do not suffice, a hundred surely ought to ue us 
proof against all contrary temptations! 

But if God cannot win us to himself by gentle means, 
must we not be mere blocks if his threatenings also fail ? 
Jesus Christ summons all those who from fear of temporal 
death shall have denied the truth, to appear at the bar of 
God his Father, and says, that then both body and soul 
will be consigned to perdition. (Matt. x. 28; Luke xii. 5.) 
And in another passage he says that he will disclaim all 
those who shall have denied him before men. (Matt. x. 33; 
Luke xu. 10.) These words, if we are not altogether im- 
pervious to feeling, might well make our hair stand on end! 
Be this as it may, this much is certain; if these things do 
not move us as they ought, nothing remains for us but a 
fearful judgment. (Heb. x. 27.) All the words of Christ 
having proved unavailing, we stand convicted of gross 
infidelity. 

It is in vain for us to allege that pity ma be shown 
us, inasmuch as our nature is so frail; for it is said, on the 
contrary, that Moses having looked to God by faith was 
fortified so as not to yield under any temptation. Where- 
fore, when we are thus soft and easy to bend, it is a manifest 
sign, I do not say that we have no zeal, no firmness, but that 
we know nothing either of God or his kingdom. When we 
are reminded that we ought to be united to our Head, it 
seems to us a fine pretext for exemption to say, that we are 


340 JOHN CALVIN. 


men! But what were those who have trodden the path 
before us? Indeed, had we nothing more than pure doc- 
trine, all the excuses we could make would be frivolous; but 
having so many examples which ought to supply us with the 
strongest proof, the more deserving are we of condemnation. 

There are two points to be considered. The first is, that 
the whole body of the Church in general has always been, 
and to the end will be, liable to be afflicted by the wicked, 
as is said in the Psalms (Psalm exxix. 1), ‘ From my youth 
up they have tormented me, and dragged the plough over 
me from one end to the other.”” The Holy Spirit there 
brings in the ancient Church, in order that we, after being 
much acquainted with her afflictions, may not regard it as 
either new or vexatious, when the like is done to ourselves 
in the present day. St. Paul, also, in quoting from another 
Psalm (Rom. viii. 836; Psalm xliv. 23), a passage in which 
it is said, ‘‘We have been like sheep to the slaughter ;” 
shows that that has not been for one age only, but is the 
ordinary condition of the Church, and shall be. 

Therefore, on seeing how the Church of God is trampled 
upon in the present day by proud worldlings, how one barks 
and another bites, how they torture, how they plot against 
her, how she is assailed incessantly by mad dogs and savage 
beasts, let it remind us that the same thing was done in all 
the olden time. It is true God sometimes gives her a truce 
and time of refreshment, and hence in the Psalm above 
quoted, it is said, “‘ He cutteth the cords of the wicked ;” and 
in another passage (Psalm exxv. 3), “He breaks their staff, 
lest the good should fall away, by being too hardly pressed.” 
But still it has pleased him that his Church should always 
have to battle so long as she is in this world, her repose 
being treasured up on high in the heavens. (Heb. iii. 9.) 

Meanwhile, the issue of her afflictions has always been 
fortunate. At all events, God has caused that though she 
has been pressed by many calamities, she has never been 


ON ENDURING PERSECUTION FOR CHRIST. oan 


completely crushed; as it is said (Psalm vii. 15), “The 
wicked with all their efforts have not succeeded in that at 
which they aimed.” St. Paul glories in the fact, and shows 
that this is the course which God in mercy always takes. 
He says (1 Cor. iv. 12), ‘“‘We endure tribulations, but we 
are not in agony; we are impoverished, but not left desti- 
tute; we are persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, hut 
we perish not; bearing everywhere in our body the morti- 
fication of the Lord Jesus, in order that his life may be 
manifested in our mortal bodies.’’ Such being, as. we see, 
the issue which God has at all times given to the persecu- 
tions of his Church, we ought to take courage, knowing 
that our forefathers, who were frail men like ourselves, 
always had the victory over their enemies, by remaining 
firm in endurance. 

I only touch on this article briefly to come to the second, 
which is more to our purpose, viz., that WE OUGHT TO TAKE 
ADVANTAGE OF THE PARTICULAR EXAMPLES OF THE MARTYRS 
WHO HAVE GONE BEFORE US. ‘These are not confined to two 
or three, but are, as the Apostle says (Heb. xii. 1), ‘a great 
and dense cloud.’’ By this expression he intimates that the 
number is so great that it ought as it were completely to 
engross our sight. Not to be tedious, I will only mention 
the Jews, who were persecuted for the true Religion, as well 
under the tyranny of King Antiochus as a little after his 
death. We cannot allege that the number of sufferers was 
small, for it formed as it were a large army of martyrs. We 
cannot say that it consisted of prophets whom God had set 
apart from common people; for women and young children 
formed part of the band. We cannot say that they got off 
at a cheap rate, for they were tortured as cruelly as it was 
possible to be. Accordingly, we hear what the Apostle 
says (Heb. xi. 85), ‘Some were stretched out like drums, 
not caring to be delivered, that they might obtain a better 
resurrection; others were proved by mockery and blows, or 


342 JOHN CALVIN. 


bonds and prisons; others were stoned or sawn asunder ; 
others travelled up and down, wandering among mountains 
and caves.” 

_ Let us now compare their case with ours. If they so 
endured for the truth which was at that time so obscure, 
what ought we to do in the clear light which is now shining ? 
God speaks to us with open mouth; the great gate of the 
kingdom of heaven has been opened, and Jesus Christ calls 
us to himself, after having come down to us that we might 
have him as it were present to our eyes. What a reproach 
would it be to us to have less zeal in suffering for the Gospel, 
than those had who only hailed the promises afar off—who 
had only a little wicket opened whereby to come to the 
kingdom of God, and who had only some memorial and 
type of Jesus Christ? These things cannot be expressed in 
word as they deserve, and therefore I leave each to ponder 
them for himself. 

The doctrine now laid down, as it is general, ought to be 
carried into practice by all Christians, each applying it to 
his own use according as may be necessary. This I say, in 
order that those who do not see themselves in apparent 
danger may not think it superfluous as regards them. They 
are not at this hour in the hands of tyrants, but how do 
they know what God means to do with them hereafter? We 
ought therefore to be so forearmed, that if some Persecution 
which we did not expect arrives, we may not be taken 
unawares. But I much fear that there are many deaf ears 
in regard to this subject. So far are those who are shel- 
tered and at their ease from preparing to suffer death when 
need shall be, that they do not even trouble themselves about 
serving God in their lives. It nevertheless continues true 
that this preparation for persecution ought to be our ordinary 
study, and especially in the times in which we live. 

Those, again, whom God calls to suffer for the testimony 
of his Name, ought to show by deeds. that they have been 


ON ENDURING PERSECUTION FOR CHRIST. - 843 


thoroughly trained to patient endurance. Then ought they 
to recall to mind all the exhortations which were given them 
in times past, and bestir themselves just as the soldier rushes 
to. arms when the trumpet sounds. But how different is the 
result! The only question is how to find out subterfuges 
for escaping. I say this in regard to the gréater part; for 
persecution is a true touchstone by which God ascertains 
who are his. And few are so faithful as to be prepared to 
meet death boldly. 

It is a kind of monstrous thing, that persons who make 
a boast of having heard a little of the gospel, can venture to 
open their lips to give utterance to such quibbling. Some 
will say, What do we gain by confessing our faith to obsti- 
nate people who have deliberately resolved to fight against 
God? Is not this to cast pearls before swine? Asif Jesus 
Christ had not distinctly declared (Matt. viii. 38), that he 
wishes to be confessed among the perverse and malignant. 
If they are not instructed thereby, they will at all events 
remain confounded; and hence confession is an odor of a 
sweet smell before God, even though it be deadly to the 
reprobate. There are some who say, What will our death 
profit? Will it not rather prove an offence? As if God 
had left them the choice of dying when they should see it 
good and find the occasion opportune. On the contrary, we 
approve our obedience by leaving in his hand the profit 
which is to accrue from our death. 

In the first place, then, the Christian man, wherever he 
may be, must resolve, notwitstanding of dangers or threat- 
enings, to walk in simplicity as God has commanded. Let 
him guard as much as he can against the ravening of the 
wolves, but let it not be with carnal craftiness. Above all, 
let him place his life in the hands of God. Has he done 
so? Then if he happens to fall into the hands of the 
enemy, let him think that God, having so arranged, is pleased 
to have him for one-of the witnesses of his Son, and there- 


344 JOHN CALVIN. 


fore that he has no means of drawing back without breaking 
faith with him to whom we have promised all duty in life 
and in death—him whose we are and to whom we belong, 
even though we should have made no promise. 

In saying this I do not lay all under the necessity of 
making a full and entire Confession of everything which 
they believe, even should they be required todo so. Iam 
aware also of the measure observed by St. Paul, although no 
man was ever more determined boldly to maintain the cause 
of the gospel as he ought. And hence it is not without 
cause our Lord promises to give us, on such an occasion, “ a 
mouth and wisdom” (Luke xxi. 15); as if he had said, that 
the office of the Holy Spirit is not only to strengthen us to 
be bold and valiant, but also to give us prudence and dis- 
cretion, to guide us in the course which it will be expedient 
to take. 

The substance of the whole is, that those who are in such 
distress are to ask and obtain such prudence from above, 
not following their own carnal wisdom, in searching out for 
a kind of loop-holes by which to escape. ‘There are some 
who tell us that our Lord himself gave no answer to those 
who interrogated him. But I rejoin, /irst, That this does 
not abolish the rule which he has given us to make Confession 
of our Faith when so required. (1 Peter iii. 15.) Secondly, 
That he never used any disguise to save his life: and, 
Thirdly, That he never gave an answer so ambiguous, as 
not to embody a sufficient testimony to all that he had to 
say; and that, moreover, he had already satisfied those who 
came to interrogate him anew, with the view not of obtaining 
information, but merely of laying traps to ensnare him. 

Let it be held, then, as a fixed point among all Christians, 
that they ought not to hold their life more precious than 
the testimony to the truth, inasmuch as God wishes to be 
glorified thereby. Is it in vain that he gives the name of 
Wirnessss (for this is the meaning of the word Martyr) to 


ON ENDURING PERSECUTION FOR CHRIST. 845 


all who have to answer before the enemies of the faith? Is 
it not because he wishes to employ them for such a purpose ? 
Here every one is not to look for his fellow, for God does 
not honor all alike with the call. And as we are inclined 
so to look, we must be the more on our guard against it. 
Peter having heard from the lips of our Lord Jesus (John 
xxi. 18), that he should be led in his old age where he would 
not, asked, What was to become of his companion John? 
There is not one amongst us who would not readily have put 
the same question; for the thought which instantly rises in 
our minds is, Why do I suffer rather than others? On the 
contrary, Jesus Christ exhorts all of us in common, and 
each of us in particular, to hold ourselves ‘‘ready”’ in order 
that according as he shall call this one or that one, we may 
march forth in our turn. 

I explained above how little prepared we shall be to suf- 
fer martyrdom, if we be not armed with the divine PROMISES. 
It now remains to show somewhat more fully what the 
purport and aim of these promises are —not to specify 
them all in detail, but to show the principal things which 
God wishes us to hope from him, to console us in our afflic- 
tions. Now these things, taken summarily, are three. The 
first is, that inasmuch as our life and death are in his hand, 
he will so preserve us by his might that not a hair will be 
plucked out of our heads without his leave. Believers, there- 
fore, ought to feel assured into whatever hands they may 
fall, that God is not divested of the guardianship which he 
exercises over their persons. Were such a persuasion well 
imprinted on our hearts, we should be delivered from the 
greater part of the doubts and perplexities which torment 
us and obstruct us in our duty. 

We see tyrants let loose: thereupon it seems to us that 
God no longer possesses any means of saving us, and we 
are tempted to provide for our own affairs as if nothing 
more were to be expected from him. On the contrary, his 


346 JOHN CALVIN. 


Providence, as he unfolds it, ought to be regarded by us as an 
impregnable fortress. Let us labor, then, to learn the full 
import of the expression, that our bodies are in the hands 
of him who created them. For this reason he has some- 
times delivered his people in a miraculous manner, and 
beyond all human expectation, as Shedrach, Meshach, and 
Abednego, from the fiery furnace, Daniel from the den of 
lions, Peter from Herod’s prison, where he was locked in, 
chained, and guarded so closely. By these examples he 
meant to testify that he holds our enemies in check, although 
it may not seem so, and has power to withdraw us from the 
midst of death when he pleases: Not that he always does 
it; but in reserving authority to himself to dispose of us for 
life and for death, he would have us to feel fully assured 
that he has us under his charge; so that whatever tyrants 
attempt, and with whatever fury they may rush against us, 
it belongs to him alone to order our life. 

If he permits tyrants to slay us, it is not because our life 
is not dear to him, and in greater honor an hundred times 
than it deserves. Such being the case, having declared by 
the mouth of David (Psalm ecxvi. 18), that the death of the 
saints is precious in his sight, he says also by the mouth of 
Isaiah (xxvi. 21), that the earth will discover the blood 
which: seems to be concealed. Let the enemies of the 
gospel, then, be as prodigal as they will of the blood of 
Martyrs, they shall have to render a fearful account of it 
even to its last drop! In the present day, they indulge in 
proud derision while consigning believers to the flames; and 
after having bathed in their blood, they are intoxicated by 
it to such a degree as to count all the murders which they 
commit mere festive sport. But if we have patience to wait, 
God will show in the end that it is not in vain he has taxed 
our life at so high a value. Meanwhile, let it not offend us 
that it seems to confirm the gospel, which in worth surpasses 
heaven and earth ! 


ON ENDURING PERSECUTION FOR CHRIST. 347 


To be better assured that God does not leave us as it 
were forsaken in the hands of tyrants, let us remember the 
declaration of Jesus Christ, when he says (Acts ix. 4) that 
he himself is persecuted in his members. God had indeed 
said before, by Zechariah (Zech. ii. 8), “‘ He who touches 
_you touches the apple of mine eye:’” But here it is said 
much more expressly, that if we suffer for the gospel, it is 
as much as if the Son of God were suffering in person. Let 
us know, therefore, that Jesus Christ must forget himself 
before he can cease to think of us when we are in prison, or 
in danger of death for his cause; and let us know that God 
will take to heart all the outrages which tyrants commit | 
upon us, just as if they were committed on his own Son. 

Let us now come to the second point which God declares 
to us in his promise for our consolation. It is, that he will 
so sustain us by the energy of his Spirct that our enemies, 
do what they may, even with Satan at their head, will gain 
no advantage over us. And we see how he displays his 
gifts in such an emergency; for the invincible constancy 
which appears in the martyrs abundantly and beautifully 
demonstrates that God works in them mightily. In perse- 
cution there are two things grievous to the flesh, the Vitu- 
peration and insult of men, and the Tortures which the 
body suffers. Now, God promises to hold out his hand to 
us so effectually, that we shall overcome both by patience. 
What he thus tells us he confirms by fact. Let us take this 
buckler, then, to ward off all fears by which we are assailed, 
and let us not confine the working of the Holy Spirit within 
such narrow limits as to suppose that he will not easily 
surmount all the cruelties of men.’ 

Of this we have had, among other examples, one which is 
particularly memorable. A young man who once lived with 
us here, having been apprehended in the town of Tournay, 
was condemned to have his head cut off if he recanted, and 
to be burned alive if he continued steadfast to his purpose! 


348 JOHN CALVIN. 


When he was asked, What he meant to do? he replied 
simply, ‘‘ He who will give me grace to die patiently for his 
Name, will surely give me grace to. bear the fire!” We 
ought to take this expression not as that of a mortal man, 
but as that of the Holy Spirit, to assure us that God is not 
less powerful to strengthen us, and render us victorious over 
tortures, than to make us submit willingly to a milder death. 
Moreover, we oftentimes see what firmness he gives to 
unhappy malefactors who suffer for their crimes. I speak 
not of the hardened, but of those who derive consolation 
from the grace of Jesus Christ, and by this means, with a 
peaceful heart, undergo the most grievous punishment which 
can be inflicted. One beautiful instance is seen in the thief 
who was converted at the death of our Lord. Will God, 
who thus powerfully assists poor criminals when enduring 
the punishment of their misdeeds, be so wanting to his own 
people, while fighting for his cause, as not to give them 
invincible courage ? 

The third point for consideration in the promises which 
God gives his Martyrs is, The fruit which they ought to hope 
for from their sufferings, and in the end, if need be, from 
their death. Now, this fruit is, that after having glorified 
his Name—after having edified the Church by their con- 
stancy—they will be gathered together with the Lord Jesus 
into his immortal glory. But as we have above spoken of 
this at some length, it is enough here to recall it to remem- 
brance. Let believers, then, learn to lift up their heads 
towards the crown of glory and immortality to which God 
invites them, that thus they may not feel reluctant to quit 
the present life for sucli a recompense; and, to feel well 
assured of this inestimable blessing, let them have always 
before their eyes the conformity which they thus have to 
our Lord Jesus Christ; beholding death in the midst of life, 
just as he, by the reproach of the cross, attained to THE 
GLORIOUS RESURRECTION, wherein consists all our felicity, 
joy, and triumph ! 


Did id 
JESUS OF NAZARETH. 


STANLEY. 

[Artuur Penruyn Srantezy, D.D., son of the Bishop of Norwich, 
was born at Alderley, England, December 13th 1815. A pupil of Dr. 
Arnold at Rugby, he paused, after winning the highest honors at 
Oxford, to write a worthy biography of that lamented schoolmaster. 
While regius professor of ecclesiastical history, Oxford, and hono- 
rary chaplain in ordinary to the Queen, he was made Dean of West- 
minster in 1864, having declined the honorary appointment of Arch- 
bishop of Dublin. The Holy Land was visited by him in 1852, and 
again ten years later as chaplain to the Prince of Wales. This Ser- 
mon was preached on Good Friday, 1862, in the encampment by the 
Spring of Nazareth. Dean Stanley adorns every subject he writes 
upon with gems of scholarship and thought. His “‘ Sinai and Pales- 
tine’ should be read by every student of the Bible, as the most vivid 
and best portraiture of those sacred scenes. Chief among his works 
are: “ Sermons and Essays on the Apostolical Age;”’ ‘‘ The Epistle to 
the Corinthians ;”’ “ Lectures on the Eastern Church ;”’ “ Lectures on 
the Jewish Church.’ ] 


“ Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was, 
‘ Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.’”?—John xix. 19. 


Wuat are the lessons of Good Friday? especially of 
Good Friday in Palestine and in this place? In the words 
of the text, in the title written on the Cross, the name of 
Jesus Christ is at that supreme moment of His Last Passion 
brought together with the recollection of His early years at 
Nazareth. What are the lessons which they both teach in 
common ? 

I. Everywhere the event of Good Friday speaks to us of 
the universal love of God to His creatures. That is why it 
is so truly called Good Friday. It has its good news as 


much as Christmas Day or Easter Day. It tells us not only 
(349) 


350 ARTHUR P. STANLEY. 


that God is Love, but that He bears love to every one on 
earth, however far they may seem to be removed from Him. 
It was for this that He sent His Son into the world,—it was 
for this that Christ died. It was by His death, more even 
than by His life, that He showed how His sympathy ex- 
tended far beyond His own nation, His own friends, His 
own family. ‘I, if I be lifted up’ on the Cross, “ will 
‘draw all men unto me.” It is this‘which the Collects of 
this day bring before us. They speak, in fact, of hardly 
anything else: They tell us how He died that “ all estates,” 
not one estate only, but ‘‘a// estates in His Holy Church,” 
—that ‘every member of the Church” in its widest sense, 
not the clergy or the religious only, but every one, in his 
‘“‘several vocation and ministry,’ might “truly and godly 
serve Him.” They pray for God’s mercy to visit not 
Christians merely, but all religions, however separate from 
ours,—‘‘ Jews, Turks, Heretics, and Infidels,’’—in the hope 
that they may all at last, here or hereafter, be ‘one fold 
under one shepherd,’ the One Good Shepherd who laid 
down His life not for the flock of one single fold only, but 
for the countless sheep scattered on the hills, not of the fold 
of the Jewish people, or of the Christian Church only, but 
of all mankind. 

This is a truth which comes home to us with peculiar 
force in Palestine. What is it that has made this small 
country so famous? What is it that has carried the names 
of Jerusalem and of Nazareth to the uttermost parts of the 
earth? It is in one word, “the death of Christ.” Had 
He not died as He did, His religionn—His name,—His 
country,—the places of His birth and education and life,— 
would never have broken through all the bonds of time and 
place as they have. That we are here at all on this day, is 
a proof of the effect. which His death has had even on the 
outward fortunes of the world. 

This universal love of God in Christ’s death is specially 


JESUS OF NAZARETH. 351 


impressed upon us in Nazareth. What Christ was in His 
death, He was in His life. What He was in His life, He 
was in His death. And if we wish to know the spirit which 
pervades both, we cannot do so better than by seeing what 
we may call the text of His first sermon at Nazareth. He 
was in the synagogue. The roll of the Hebrew Scriptures 
was handed to Him. He unrolled it. His former friends 
and acquaintance fixed their eyes upon Him to see what He 
would say. And what were the words which he chose? 
They were these:—The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, be- 
cause he hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor; 
he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deli- 
verance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, 
to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the accept- 
able year of the Lord.”” What He said on this text is not 
described ; we are only told that they “ marvelled ‘at the 
gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth.” But 
what those gracious words were we can well see from the 
words of the passage itself. ‘The Spirit of the Lord was 
upon Him,” first, “to preach the gospel to the poor,” the 
glad tidings of God’s love to the poor, the humble classes, 
the neglected classes, the dangerous classes, the friendless, 
the oppressed, the unthought-for, the uncared-for. The 
Spirit of God was upon Him, secondly, “to heal the broken- 
hearted :”’—to heal, as a good physician heals, not with one 
medicine, but with all the various medicines and remedies 
which Infinite Wisdom possesses, all the fractures and dis- 
eases and infirmities of our poor human hearts. ‘There is 
not a weakness, there is not a sorrow, there is not a griey- 
ance, for which the love of God, as seen in the life and death 
of Christ, does not offer some remedy. He has not over- 
looked us. “He is with us. He remembers us. ‘The Spirit 
of God was upon Him, thirdly, “to preach deliverance to 
the captive.” Whatever be the evil habit, or the inveterate 
prejudice, or the master passion, or the long indulgence, 


352 ARTHUR P. STANLEY. 


which weighs upon us like a bondage, He feels for us, and 
will do His utmost to set us free,—to set at liberty those 
that are cramped and bruised and confined by the chain of 
their sins, their weakness, their misfortunes, their condition 
in life, their difficulties, their responsibilities, their want of 
responsibilities, their employments, their want of employ- 
ments. And, fourthly, ‘The Spirit of God was upon Him,” 
to “give sight to the blind.”” How few of us there are who 
know our own failings, who see into our own hearts, who 
know what is really good for us! That is the knowledge 
which the thought of Christ’s death is likely to give us. 
That is the truth, which, above all other truths, is likely to 
set us free. ‘Lord, that I may receive my sight,’ is the 
prayer which each of us may offer up for our spiritual state, 
as the poor man whom He met at Jericho did for his bodily 
eyesight. 

For every one of these conditions he died. Not for those 
only who are professedly religious, but for those who are the 
least so,—to them the message of Good Friday and of Naza- 
reth is especially addressed. Christianity is, one may almost 
say, the only religion, of which the Teacher addressed Him- 
self, not to the religious, not to the ecclesiastical, not to the 
learned world, but to the irreligious, or the non-religious, to 
those who thought little of themselves and were thought 
little oftby others, to the careless, to the thoughtless, to the 
rough publican, to the wild prodigal, to the heretical Sama- 
ritan, to the heathen soldier, to the thankless peasants of 
Nazareth, to the swarming populations of Galilee. He 
addresses Himself now, to each of us, however lowly we may 
be in our own eyes, however little we think that we have a 
religious call, however encompassed we are with infirmities ; 
His love is ready to receive, to encourage, to cherish, to 
Save us. 

II. I pass to the other lesson which Good Friday teaches 
us here. It is that, whatever good is to be done in the 


JESUS OF NAZARETH. 353 


world, even though it is God Himself who does it, cannot 
be done without an effort,—a preparation,—a Sacrifice. So 
it was especially in the death of Christ,—so it was in His 
whole life. His whole life from the time when He grew up, 
‘as a tender plant’ in the seclusion of this valley, to the 
hour when He died at Jerusalem, was one long effort,—one 
long struggle against misunderstanding, opposition, scorn, 
hatred, hardship, pain. He had doubtless His happier and 
gentler hours, we must not forget them: His friends at 
Bethany, His apostles who hung upon His lips, His mother 
who followed Him in thought and mind wherever He went. 
But here, amongst His own people, He met with angry op- 
position and jealousy. He had to bear the hardships of 
toil and labor, like any other Nazarene artisan. He had 
here, by a silent preparation of thirty years, to make Him- 
self ready for the work which lay before Him. He had to 
endure the heat and the cold, the burning sun and the 
stormy rain, of these hills and valleys. ‘‘The foxes?’ of 
the plain of Esdraelon ‘have holes,” ‘the birds’ of the 
Galilean forests ‘‘ have their nests,”’ but ‘‘ He had’’ often “not 
where to lay his head.” And in Jerusalem, though there 
were momentary bursts of enthusiasm in His behalf, yet He 
came so directly across the interests, the fears, the pleasures, 
and the prejudices of those who there ruled and taught, that 
at last it cost Him His life. By no less a sacrifice could the 
world be redeemed, by no less a struggle could His work 
be finished. 

In that work, in one sense, none but He can take part. 
‘¢ He trod the winepress alone.’ But in another sense, often 
urged upon us in the Bible, we must all take part in it, if 
we would wish to do good to ourselves or to others. We 
cannot improve ourselves, we cannot assist others, we can- 
not do our duty in the world, except by exertion, except by 
unpopularity, except with annoyance, except with care and 


difficulty. We must, each of us, bear our Cross with Him. 
12 Z 


354 ARTHUR: PF. STANLEY. 


When we bear it, it is lightened by thinking of Him. When 
we bear it, each day makes it easier to us. Once the name 
of “‘ Christian,” of ‘‘ Nazarene,’”’ was an offence in the eyes 
of the world; now, it is a glory. But we cannot have the 
glory without the labor which it involves. To “hear His 
words, and to do them,”’ to hear of His death, and to follow 
in the path of His sufferings, this, and this only, as He him- 
self, has told us, is to build our house, the house of our life, 
of our faith, of our happiness, upon a rock; a rock which 
will grow firmer and stronger the more we build upon it, and 
the more we have to bear. ‘The rains may descend, and 
the floods may come, and the winds may blow and may beat 
upon that house ;’’ but the house will not fall, “for it will 
have been founded upon the rock.”’ 


> 9,41 4 
THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 


DWIGHT. 

[Timorny Dwicut, 8. T. D., LL.D., a learned and able theologian 
of the Congregational Church, was born in Northampton, Massachu- 
setts, May 14th 1752. Much of his worth and labors in life were 
owing to his mother’s training—a daughter of the great Jonathan 
Edwards. At the age of seventeen he graduated with honors from 
Yale College, acted as a tutor therein for six years, was licensed to 
preach in 1777, and served the year following as a chaplain in the 
American army. Pastoral and academic duties, mainly at Greenfield, 
intervened till his appointment as president of Yale College and pro- 
fessor of theology, in 1795. These duties he discharged with con- 
scientious fidelity till his death, January 11th 1817. To each course 
of students he preached a series of Sermons, forming a systematic 
survey of theology. These were first published a half century ago, 
in five volumes, entitled: ‘Theology Explained and Defended in a 
Series of Sermons,” 173 in all, and deserve a continued popularity. 
His clearness of thought and soundness of judgment make these pro- 
found subjects interesting and instructive to all classes of minds. | 


“O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in 
man that walketh to direct his steps.’’—Jeremiah x. 23. 


In this passage of Scripture, the prophet, after uttering a 
variety of sublime declarations concerning the perfections 
and providence of God, and the follies and sins of men, 
exhibits the progress of life as a Way. In this Way, all 
men are considered as travelling. We commence the journey 
at our birth ; pass on through the several stages of childhood, 
youth, manhood, and old age, and finish it when we enter 
eternity. The accommodations, and the fare, are greatly 
varied among the various travellers. Some find their enter- 
tainment plentiful, and agreeable: and some, even luxurious 


and splendid. Others are slenderly provided with food, 
(355) 


356 TIMOTHY DWIGHT. 


raiment, and lodging; are almost mere sufferers; and lite- 
rally, have not where to lay their heads. 

In the mean time, sorrow and disease, dangers and acci- 
dents, like a band of marauders, lie in wait for the travellers ; 
and harass, and destroy, a great proportion of their number. 
Of the vast multitude, who continually walk in the path of 
life, almost all disappear long before they reach the goal at 
which it terminates. A very few arrive at the end. Of. 
these, every one, dragging heavily his weary feet over the 
last division of the road, teaches us, that this part of his 
progress is only labor and sorrow. 

A remarkable fact, universally attendant on our journey, 
is recited in the text. ‘‘O Lord,” says the deeply humbled 
prophet, ‘I know that the way of man is not in himself; 
it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.” The 
enterprise is not contrived by ourselves. We are placed in 
it, and necessitated to accomplish it, by a superior and 
irresistible hand. It cannot but seem strange, that in such 
a journey we should originally be prevented from the ability 
to direct ourselves; and that, while we are compelled to the 
undertaking, we should be furnished for it in a manner so 
imperfect. Yet such is unquestionably the fact. Nor is the 
explanation so difficult, or so unsatisfactory, as we are prone 
to believe. God originally intended, that all his creatures 
should be dependent on him for aid, guidance, and protec- 
tion. Nor can it be rationally supposed, that such a 
dependence on his perfections and providence is either 
unreasonable or undesirable. The Sovereignty of God which 
is so clearly and strongly visible in this interesting sub- 
ject, has ever been questioned, and very often denied, by 
_ mankind. ‘To establish this doctrine in the minds of my 
audience, is the peculiar design of the present discourse. 
In a sermon, lately delivered in this place on the deerees of 
God, I explained what I intend by the divine Sovereignty. 
It was then observed, that “‘ the conduct of God is sovereign, 


THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 357 


in this sense; that he does according to his will, independ- 
ently and irresistibly, without giving an account of any of 
his matters any farther than he pleases; but that he wills 
nothing without the best reason, whether that reason be dis- 
closed to his creatures, or not; that real glory to himself, 
and real good to his creation, not otherwise attainable, are 
universally the object to which his pleasure is directed, 
whether it respects the existence and motions of an insect, 
or the salvation of aman.” It was remarked, also, at that 
time, that, in the ordinary sense of the word, God never acts 
arbitrarily ; and that to say, he wills a thing because he wills 
at, is to speak without meaning. All his pleasure, all his deter- 
minations, are perfectly wise and good; founded on the best 
of all reasons, and directed to the best of all purposes. Were 
he to act in any other manner, his providence would be less 
wise, and less desirable. 

It will not be questioned, that this doctrine is deeply 
interesting to man. On this life is suspended that which is 
to come. Consequences, eternal and incomprehensible, will 
‘flow from those doctrines, which we adopt in the present 
world. All our conduct will then be examined; and will 
either be approved, or condemned. If we have chosen the 
strait and narrow way prescribed to us, the termination 
will be happy. If we have preferred the broad and crooked 
road, it will be deplorable. 

Few of this audience will probably deny the truth of a 
direct Scriptural declaration. With as little reason can it 
be denied, that most of them apparently live in the very 
manner, in which they would live, if the doctrine were false : 
or that they rely, chiefly at least, on their own sagacity, 
contrivance, and efforts, for success in this life, and that 
which is to come. As little can it be questioned, that such 
self-confidence is a guide eminently dangerous and deceit- 
ful. Safe as we may feel under its direction, our safety is 
imaginary. ‘The folly of others in trusting to themselves we 


358 TIMOTHY DWIGHT. 


discern irresistibly. The same folly they perceive, with equal 
evidence, in us. Our true wisdom lies in willingly feeling, 
and cheerfully acknowledging, our dependence on God; and 
in committing ourselves with humble reliance to his care and 
direction. 

With these observations, I will now proceed to illustrate 
the truth of the doctrine. The mode which I shall pursue 
will, probably, be thought singular. I hope it will be useful. 
Metaphysical arguments, which are customarily employed 
for the purpose of establishing this and several other doc- 
trines of theology, are, if I mistake not, less satisfactory to 
the minds of men at large, than the authors of them appear 
to believe. Facts, wherever they can be fairly adduced for 
this end, are attended with a superior power of conviction ; 
and commonly leave little doubt behind them. On these, 
therefore, I shall at the present time rely for the accomplish- 
ment of my design. In the 

Ist place, The doctrine of the text ts evident, from the 
great fact, that the birth and education of all men depend 
not on themselves. 

The succeeding events of life are derived, in a great mea- 
sure at least, from our birth. By this event, it is in a prime 
degree determined whether men shall be princes or peasants, 
opulent or poor, learned or ignorant, honorable or despised ; 
whether they shall be civilized or savage, freemen or slaves, 
Christians or Heathen, Mohammedans or Jews. 

A child is born of Indian parents in the western wilder- 
ness. By his birth he is, of course, a savage. His friends, 
his mode of life, his habits, his knowledge, his opinions, his 
conduct, all grow out of this single event. His first thoughts, 
his first instructions, and all the first objects with which he 
is conversant, the persons whom he loves, the life to which 
he addicts himself, and the character which he assumes, are 
all savage. He is an Indian from the cradle: he is an 


THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 359 


Indian to the grave. To say, that he could not be other- 
wise, we are not warranted; but that he is not, is certain. 

Another child is born of a Bedouin Arab. From this 
moment he begins to be an Arabian. His hand is against 
every man; and every man’s hand is against him. Before 
he can walk, or speak, he is carried through pathless wastes 
in search of food; and roams in the arms of his mother, and 
on the back of a camel, from spring to spring, and from 
pasture to pasture. Even then he begins his conflict with 
hunger and thirst; is scorched by a vertical sun; shrivelled 
by the burning sand beneath; and poisoned by the breath 
of the Simoom. Hardened thus through his infancy and 
childhood, both in body and mind, he becomes, under the 
exhortations and example of his father, a robber from his 
youth; attacks every stranger whom he is able to overcome ; 
and plunders every valuable thing on which he can lay his 
hand. 

A third receives his birth in the palace of a British noble- 
man; and is welcomed to the world as the heir apparent of 
an ancient, honorable, and splendid family. As soon as he 
opens his eyes on the light, he is surrounded by all the enjoy- 
ments which opulence can furnish, ingenuity contrive, or 
fondness bestow. He is dandled on the knee of indulgence ; 
encircled by attendants, who watch and prevent alike his 
necessities and wishes; cradled on down; and charmed to 
sleep by the voice of tenderness and care. From the dan- 
gers and evils of life he is guarded with anxious solicitude. 
To its pleasures he is conducted by the ever-ready hand of 
maternal affection. His person is shaped and improved by 
a succession of masters; his mind is opened, invigorated, and 
refined, by the assiduous superintendence of learning and 
wisdom. While a child, he is served by a host of menials, 
and flattered by successive trains of visitors. When a youth, 
he is regarded by a band of tenants with reverence and awe. 
His equals in age bow to his rank; and multitudes, of supe- 


360 TIMOTHY DWIGHT. 


rior years, acknowledge his distinction by continual testi- “ 
monies of marked respect. When a man, he engages the 
regard of his sovereign ; commands the esteem of the senate ; 
and earns the love and applause of his country. 

A fourth child, in the same kingdom, is begotten by a 
beggar, and born under a hedge. From his birth, he is 
trained to suffering and hardihood. He is nursed, if he can 
be said to be nursed at all, on a coarse, scanty, and precari- 
ous pittance; holds life only as a tenant at will; combats 
from the first dawnings of intellect with insolence, cold, and 
nakedness; is originally taught to beg and to steal; is 
driven from the doors of men by the porter or the house- 
dog; and is regarded as an alien from the family of Adam. 
Like his kindred worms, he creeps through life in the dust; 
dies under the hedge, where he is born; and is then, perhaps, 
cast into a ditch, and covered with earth, by some stranger, 
who remembers, that, although a beggar, he still was a man. 

A child enters the world in China; and unites, as a thing 
of course, with his sottish countrymen in the stupid worship 
of the idol Fo. Another prostrates himself before the Lama, 
in consequence of having received his being in Thibet, and 
of seeing the Lama worshipped by all around him. 

A third, who begins his existence in Turkey, is carried 
early to the mosque; taught to lisp with profound reverence 
the name of Mohammed; habituated to repeat the prayers 
and sentences of the Koran as the means of eternal life; 
and induced, in a manner irresistibly, to complete his title 
to Paradise by a pilgrimage to Mecca. 

The Hindoo infant grows into a religious veneration for 
the cow; and perhaps never doubts, that, if he adds to this 
a solemn devotion to Juggernaut, the Gooroos, and the 
Dewtahs, and performs carefully his ablutions in the Ganges, 
he shall wash away all his sins, and obtain, by the favor of 
Brahma, a seat among the blessed. 

In our own favored country, one child is born of parents 


THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 361 


devoted solely to this world. From his earliest moments of 
understanding, he hears and sees nothing commended, but 
hunting, horse-racing, visiting, dancing, dressing, riding, 
parties, gaming, acquiring money with eagerness and skill, 
and spending it in gayety, pleasure, and luxury. These 
things, he is taught by conversation and example, constitute 
all the good of man. His taste is formed, his habits are 
riveted, and the whole character of his soul is turned to 
them, before he is fairly sensible that there is any other 
good. The question, whether virtue and piety are either 
duties or blessings, he probably never asks. In the dawn of 
life he sees them neglected and despised by those whom he 
most reverences; and learns only to neglect and despise 
them also. Of Jehovah he thinks as little, and for the same 
reason, as a Chinese or a Hindoo.. Yhey pay their devotions 
to Fo and to Juggernaut: he, his to money and pleasure. 
Thus he lives, and dies, a mere animal; a stranger to intel- 
ligence and morality, to his duty and his God. 

Another child comes into existence in the mansion of 
Knowledge and Virtue. From his infancy, his mind is 
fashioned to wisdom and piety. In his infancy he is taught 
and allured to remember his Creator; and to unite, first in 
form, and then in affection, in the household devotions of 
the morning and evening. God he knows almost as soon as 
he can know anything. The presence of that glorious being he 
is taught to realize almost from the cradle; and from the 
dawn of intelligence, to understand the perfections and 
government of his Creator. His own accountableness as 
soon as he can comprehend it, he begins to feel habitually, 
and always. The way of life through the Redeemer is early, 
and regularly explained to him by the voice of parental 
love; and enforced and endeared in the house of God. As 
soon as possible, he is enabled to read, and persuaded to 
‘search, the Scriptures.” Of the approach, the danger, 
and the mischiefs of temptations, he is tenderly warned. 


3862 TIMOTHY DWIGHT. 


At the commencement of sin, he is kindly checked in his 
dangerous career. ‘To God he was solemnly given in bap- 
tism. To God he was daily commended in fervent prayer. 
Under this happy cultivation he grows up, “like an olive 
tree in the courts of the Lord;” and, green, beautiful, and - 
flourishing, he blossoms ; bears fruit; and is prepared to be 
transplanted by the Divine hand to a kinder soil in the 
regions above. 

How many, and how great, are the differences in these 
several children! How plainly do they all, in ordinary cir- 
cumstances, arise out of their birth! From their birth is 
derived, of course, the education which I have ascribed to 
them; and from this education spring in a great measure 
both their character and their destiny. The place, the per- 
sons, the circumstances, are here evidently the great things 
which, in the ordinary course of Providence, appear chiefly 
to determine what the respective men shall be; and what 
shall be those allotments which regularly follow their 
respective characters. As, then, they are not at all con- 
cerned in contriving or accomplishing either their birth or 
their education ; it is certain that, in these most important 
particulars, the way of man is not in himself. God only can 
determine what child shall spring from parents, wise or 
foolish, virtuous or sinful, rich or poor, honorable or 
infamous, civilized or savage, Christian or Heathen. 

I wish it to be distinctly understood, and carefully remem- 
bered, that ‘‘in the moral conduct of all these individuals no 
physical necessity operates.’ very one of them is abso- 
lutely a free agent; as free as any created agent can be. 
Whatever he does is the result of choice, absolutely un- 
constrained. 

Let me add, that not one of them is placed in a situation 
in which, if he learns and performs his duty to the utmost 
of his power, he will fail of being finally accepted. 

2dly. The doctrine is strikingly evident from this great 


THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 363 


Fact also ; that the course of life, which men usually pursue, 
as very different from that, which they have intended. 

Human life is ordinarily little else than a collection of 
disappointments. Rarely is the life of man such as he designs 
it shall be. Often do we fail of pursuing, at all, the busi- 
ness originally in our view. The intentional farmer becomes 
a mechanic, a seaman, a merchant, a lawyer, a physican, or 
a divine. ‘The very place of settlement, and of residence 
through life, is often different, and distant, from that which 
was originally contemplated. Still more different is the suc- 
cess which follows our efforts. 

All men intend to be rich and honorable; to enjoy ease; 
and to pursue pleasure. But how small is the number of 
those who compass these objects! In this country, the great 
body of mankind are, indeed, possessed of competence; a 
safer and happier lot than that to which they aspire; yet 
few, very few are rich. Here also, the great body of man- 
kind possess a character, generally reputable; but very 
limited is the number of those who arrive at the honor which 
they so ardently desire, and of which they feel assured. 
Almost all stop at the moderate level, where human efforts 
appear to have their boundary established in the determina- 
tion of God. Nay, far below this level, creep multitudes of 
such as began life with full confidence in the attainment of 
distinction and splendor. 

The Lawyer, emulating the eloquence, business, and fame, 
of Murray or Dunning, and secretly resolved not to slacken 
his efforts, until all his rivals in the race of glory are out- 
stripped, is often astonished, as well as broken-hearted, to 
find business and fame pass by his door, and stop at the more 
favored mansion of some competitor, in his view less able, 
and less discerning, than himself. 

The Physician, devoted to medical science, and possessed 
of distinguished powers of discerning and removing diseases, 


364 TIMOTHY DWIGHT. 


is obliged to walk; while a more fortunate empiric, ignorant 
‘and worthless, rolls through the streets in his coach. 

The Legislator beholds with anguish and amazement, the 
suffrages of his countrymen given eagerly to a rival candi- 
date, devoid of knowledge and integrity; but skilled in 
flattering the base passions of men, and deterred by no hesi- 
tations of conscience, and no fears of infamy, from saying 
and doing anything which may secure his election. 

The Merchant often beholds with a despairing eye his 
own ships sunk in the ocean; his debtors fail; his goods 
unsold; his business cramped; and himself, his family, and 
his hopes, ruined: while a less skilful but more successful 
neighbor sees wealth blown to him by every wind, and 
floated on every wave. 

The crops of the Farmer are stinted; his cattle die; his 
markets are bad; and the purchaser of his commodities 
proves to be a cheat who deceives his confidence, and runs 
away with his property. 

Thus the darling schemes and fondest hopes of man are 
daily frustrated by time. While sagacity contrives, patience 
matures, and labor industriously executes; disappointment 
laughs at the curious fabric, formed by so many efforts, and 
gay with so many brilliant colors; and while the artists 
imagine the work arrived at the moment of completion, 
brushes away the beautiful web, and leaves nothing behind. 

The designs of men, however, are in many respects not 
unfrequently successful. The Lawyer and Physician acquire 
business and fame; the Statesman, votes; and the Farmer, 
wealth. But their real success, even in this case, is often 
substantially the same with that already recited. In all 
plans, and all labors, the supreme object is to become happy. 
Yet, when men have actually acquired riches and honor, or 
secured to themselves popular favor, they still find the hap- 
piness, which they expected, eluding their grasp. Neither 
wealth, fame, office, nor sensual pleasure can yield such 


THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 365 


good as we need. As these coveted objects are accumu- 
lated; the wishes of man always grow faster than his grati- 
fications. Hence, whatever he acquires he is usually as 
little satisfied and often less than before. 

A principal design of the mind in laboring for these things 
is to become superior to others. But almost all rich men are 
obliged to see, and usually with no small anguish, others 
richer than themselves; honorable men, others more honor- 
able; voluptuous men, others who enjoy more pleasure. 
The great end of the strife is therefore unobtained; and the 
happiness expected never found. Even the successful com- 
petitor in the race utterly misses his aim. The real enjoy- 
ment existed, although it was unperceived by him, in the 
mere strife for superiority. When he has outstripped all his 
rivals, the contest is at an end: and his spirits, which were 
invigorated only by contending, languish for want of a 
competitor. | 

Besides, the happiness in view was only the indulgence of 
pride, or mere animal pleasure. Neither of these can satisfy 
or endure. A rational mind may be, and often is, so narrow 
and grovelling, as not to aim at any higher good, to under- 
stand its nature, or to believe its existence. Still, in its 
original constitution, it was formed with a capacity for intel- 
lectual and moral good, and was destined to find in this 
good its only satisfaction. Hence, no inferior good will fill 
its capacity or its desires. Nor can this bent of its nature 
ever be altered. Whatever other enjoyment, therefore, it 
may attain; it will, without this, still crave and still be 
unhappy. 

No view of the ever-varying character and success of man- 
kind in their expectations of happiness, and their efforts to 
obtain it, can illustrate this doctrine more satisfactorily than 
that of the progress and end of a. class of students in this 
seminary. At their first appearance here they are all exactly 
on the same level. Their character, their hopes and their 


oa 


366 TIMOTHY DWIGHT. 


destination are the same. They are enrolled on one list; 
and enter upon a collegiate life with the same promise of 
success. At this moment they are plants, appearing just 
above the ground; all equally fair and flourishing. Within 
a short time, however, some begin to rise above others; 
indicating by a more rapid growth a structure of superior 
vigor, and promising both more early and more abundant 
fruit. 

Some are studious, steadfast, patient of toil, resolved on 
distinction, in love with science, and determined with un- 
broken ambition never to be left behind by their companions. 
Of these a part are amiable, uniform in their morals, excel- 
lent in their dispositions, and honorable by their piety. 
Another part, although less amiable, are still decent, plea- 
sant in their temper, uncensurable in their conduct, and 
reputable in their character. 

Others are thoughtless, volatile, fluttering from object to 
object, particularly from one scene of pleasure to another, 
alighting only for a moment, never settling, regardless of 
everything except the present gratification, and most regard- 
less of their time, their talents, their duty, and their souls. 

Others still are openly vicious, idle, disorderly ; gamblers, 
profane, apparently infidels ; enemies to themselves, undutiful 
to their parents, corrupters of their companions, and dis- 
turbers of the collegiate peace. | 

When the class, which these individuals originally consti- 
tuted, leaves this seat of science; a number of them will 
always be missing. Some of these have been sent away by 
the mandate of law; some have voluntarily deserted their 
education; and some not very unfrequently have gone to 
the grave. Of those who remain, the character and the 
prospects have usually become widely different. The original 
level is broken, and broken for ever. : 

How different from all this were their parents’ expecta- 
tions and their own! | 


THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 367 


Still, when they enter the world, they all intend to be rich, 
honorable, and happy. Could they look into futurity, and 
discern the events which it will shortly unfold; how changed 
would be their apprehensions ! 

One, almost at his entrance into life, knowing but inex- 
perienced, discerning but not wise, urged by strong passions, 
and secure in self-confidence, pushes boldly forward to afflu- 
ence and distinction; but, marked as the prey of cunning 
and the victim of temptation, is seduced from prudence and 
worth to folly, vice, and ruin. His property is lost by bold 
speculation, his character by licentiousness, and the man 
himself by the disappointment of his hopes and the breaking 
of his heart. 

Another, timid, humble, reluctant to begin, and easily dis- 
couraged from pursuing, insensible to the charms of distinc- 
tion, and a stranger to the inspiration of hope, without friends 
to sustain and without prospects to animate, begins to flag, 
when he commences his connection with the world, creeps 
through life because he dares not attempt to climb, and 
lives and dies, scarcely known beyond the limits of his native 
village. 

A third yields himself up a prey to sloth, and shrinks into 
insignificance for want of exertion. 

A fourth, possessed of moderate wishes, and preferring 
safety to grandeur, steers of design between poverty and 
riches, obscurity and distinction, walks through life without 
envying those who ride, and finds, perhaps, in quiet and 
safety, in an even course of enjoyment, and in the pleasure 
of being beloved rather than admired, the happiness which 
his more restless companions seek from opulence, power, and 
splendor in vain. 

A fifth, cheerful, fraught with hope, and assured by the 
gayety and bustle, which he sees around him, that the world 
is filled with good, moves onward to acquire it, without a 
suspicion of disappointment or danger. At once he is 


368 TIMOTHY DWIGHT. 


astonished to find, that men, who look pleasantly on him, are 
not his friends; that a smile of approbation is no evidence 
of good-will; and that professions and promises convey to 
him no assurance of aid or comfort. To be dependent, he 
soon learns, is to be friendless, and to need assistance, a suf- 
ficient reason for having it refused. The business, which he 
expected to court his acceptance, flies from him; the coun- 
tenance, on which he reposed, is withdrawn, and the hopes, 
which he gayly cherished, begin early to wither. Alone, 
forgotten, unprepared for struggles, and never mistrusting 
that struggles would be necessary, he is overset by the sud- 
denness and violence of the shock, and either falls into 
listlessness and stupor, or dies of a broken heart. 

A sixth, from imbecility of constitution or the malignant 
power of accident, sickens and expires, when he has scarcely 
begun to live. 

A seventh, with vigorous industry, effort, and persever- 
ance, goes steadily forward to wealth and distinction. Yet 
even he finds the void of his mind,unsupplied by real good. 
He is rich and great, but not happy. That enchanting 
object, happiness, wrought into such elegance of form and 
adorned with such brilliant colors, has ever fascinated his 
mind. Lost in wonder and delight, and gazing with an eager 
and bewildered eye, he never considered, that in this world 
the rainbow with all its splendor was only painted on a 
cloud; and, while he roves from field to field, and climbs 
from one height to another in pursuit of the fairy vision, is 
astonished to behold it still retreat before him, and finally 
vanish for ever. 

Were I to ask the youths who are before me, what are 
their designs and expectations concerning their future life, 
and write down their several answers; what a vast differ- 
ence would ultimately be found between those answers, and 
the events which would actually befall them! To how great 
a part of that difference would facts, over which they could 


THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 369 


have no control, give birth! How many of them will in all 
probability be less prosperous, rich, and honorable than they 
now intend: how many, devoted to employments, of which 
at present they do not even dream; in circumstances, of 
which they never entertained even a thought; behind those 
whom they expected to outrun, poor, sick, in sorrow or in 
the grave. 

8dly. The doctrine is further evident from the fact, that 
Life does not depend upon man. 

All intend to live, and feel secure of many years: but 
how often does death frustrate this intention, and dissolve 
the charm of this security! How many leave the world at 
an immature age! How many, in the midst of bold projects, 
sanguine desires, and strenuous exertions! How many 
asterisks appear with a melancholy aspect even in the 
younger classes of the triennial catalogue: marking solemnly, 
to a considerate mind, the termination of parental hopes, 
and the vanity of youthful designs! Where now are multi- 
tudes of those who a little while since lived, and studied and 
worshipped, here, with fond views of future eminence and 
prosperity, and with as fair a promise as can be found, of 
future success, usefulness, and honor ? 

As we are unable to assure ourselves even of a single day, 
much more of a long life, it is plain, that our eternal state 
lies beyond our control. As death finds us, so the judgment 
will certainly find us. He therefore, who kills, as well as 
makes alive, at his pleasure, must of course hold in his hands, 
only, all our allotments which lie beyond the grave. 

I have not called up this doctrine at the present time, for 
the purpose of entering into any of those metaphysical dis- 
quisitions, which restless curiosity, rather than sound wisdom, 
has commonly founded on it; but on the one hand to give it 
its proper place in this system of discourses, and on the 
other to derive from it several practical observations, which, 
there is reason to hope, may, by the blessing of God, be 

2a 


370 TIMOTHY DWIGHT. 


useful to those who hear me, especially to those who are 
students in this seminary. 

REMARKS. 

Ist. You see here, my young friends, the most solid reasons 
for gratitude to your Creator. 
God, only, directed that you should be born in this land, 
aud in the midst of peace, plenty, civilization, freedom, 
learning, and religion; and that your existence should not 
commence in a Tartarian forest or an African waste. God, 
alone, ordered that you should be born of parents who 
knew and worshipped Him, the glorious and eternal Jehovah; 
and not of parents who bowed before the Lama or the ox, 
an image of brass or the stock of a tree. In the book of 
his counsels, your names, so far as we are able to judge, 
were written in the fair lines of mercy. It is of his over- 
flowing goodness, that you are now here; surrounded with 
privileges, and beset with blessings, educated to knowledge, 
usefulness, and piety, and prepared to begin an endless 
course of happiness and glory. All these delightful things 
have been poured into your lap, and have come, unbidden, 
to solicit your acceptance. If these blessings awaken not 
gratitude, it cannot be awakened by blessings in the present 
world. If they are not thankfully felt by you, itis because 
you know not how to be tliankful. Think what you are, and 
where you are; and what and where you just as easily might 
have been. Remember, that, instead of cherishing tender 
affections, imbibing refined sentiments, exploring the field of 
- Science, and assuming the name and character of the sons 
of God, you might as easily have been dozing in the smoke 
of a wigwam, brandishing a tomahawk, or dancing round an 
embowelled captive; or that you might yourselves have been 
embowelled by the hand of superstition, and burnt on the 
altars of Moloch. If you remember these things, you cannot 
but call to mind, also, who made you to differ from the 
miserable beings who have thus lived and died. 


THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. S71 


2dly. This doctrine forcibly demands of you moderate 
desires and expectations. 

There are two modes, in which men seek happiness in the 
enjoyments of the present world. ‘Most persons freely 
indulge their wishes, and intend to find objects sufficient in 
number and value, to satisfy them.’ A few ‘aim at satis- 
faction by proportioning their desires to the number and 
measure of their probable gratifications.” By the doctrine 
of the text, the latter method is stamped with the name of 
wisdom, and on the former is inscribed the name of folly. 
Desires indulged grow faster and farther than gratifications 
extend. Ungratified desire ismisery. Expectations eagerly 
indulged and terminated by disappointment, are often exqui- 
site misery. But how frequently are expectations raised, 
only to be disappointed, and desires let loose, only to ter- 
minate in distress! The child pines for a toy: the moment 
he possesses it, he throws it by, and cries for another. When 
they are piled up in heaps around him, he looks at them with- 
out pleasure, and leaves them without regret. He knew 
not, that all the good, which they could yield, lay in expec- 
tation; nor that his wishes for more would increase faster 
than toys could be multiplied, and is unhappy at last for the 
same reason as at first: his wishes are ungratified. Still 
indulging them, and still believing that the gratification of 
them will furnish the enjoyment for which he pines, he goes 
on, only to be unhappy. 

Men are merely taller children. Honor, wealth, and 
splendor are the toys for which grown children pine; but 
which, however accumulated, leave them still disappointed 
and unhappy. God never designed that intelligent beings 
should be satisfied with these enjoyments. By his wisdom 
and goodness they were formed to derive their happiness 
from Virtue. 

Moderated desires constitute a character fitted to acquire 
all the good which this world can yield. He, who is pre- 


372 TIMOTHY DWIGHT. 


pared, 7n whatever situation he is, therewith to be content, 
has learned effectually the science of being happy, and pos- 
sesses the alchymic stone, which will change every metal into 
gold. Such a man will smile upon a stool, while Alexander 
at his side sits weeping on the throne of the world. 

The doctrine of the text teaches you irresistibly, that, 
since you cannot command gratifications, you should com- 
mand your desires; and that, as the events of life do not 
accord with your wishes, your wishes should accord with 
them. Multiplied enjoyments fall to but few men, and are 
no more rationally expected than the highest prize in a lot- 
tery. But awell regulated mind, a dignified independence 
of the world, and a wise preparation to possess one’s soul in 
patience, whatever circumstances may exist, is in the power 
of every man, and is greater wealth than that of both Indies, 
and greater honor than Ceesar ever acquired. 

38dly. As your course and your success through life are 
not under your control, you are strongly urged to commit your- 
selves to God, who can control both. 

That you cannot direct your course through the world, 
that your best concerted plans will often fail, that your san- 
guine expectations will be disappointed, and that your fond- 
est worldly wishes will terminate in mortification, cannot. 
admit of. a momentary doubt. That God can direct you, 
that he actually controls all your concerns, and that, if you 
commit yourselves to his care, he will direct you kindly 
and safely, can be doubted only of choice. Why, then, 
do you hesitate to yield yourselves and your interests to 
the guidance of your Maker? There are two reasons, 
which appear especially to govern mankind in this important 
concern: they do not and will not realize the agency of 
God in their affairs; and they do not choose to have them 
directed as they imagine he will direct them. The former is 
the result of stupidity; the latter, of impiety. Both are | 
foolish in the extreme, and not less sinful than foolish. 


THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. BY h: 


The infinitely wise, great, and glorious Benefactor of the 
universe has offered to take men by the hand, lead them 
through the journey of life, and conduct them to his own 
house in the heavens. The proof of his sincerity in making 
this offer has been already produced. He has given his own 
Son to live, and die, and rise, and reign, and intercede for 
ourrace. ‘* Herein is love,’’ if there ever was love; ‘‘ not that 
we have loved him, but that he has loved us.”’ That he, 
who has done this, should not be sincere, is impossible. St. 
Paul, therefore, triumphantly asks what none can answer: 
‘“¢ He, that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for 
us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all 
things?” ‘Trust, then, his word with undoubting confidence ; 
take his hand with humble gratitude, and with all the heart 
obey his voice, which you will everywhere hear, saying, 
“this is the way, walk ye therein.” In sickness and in 
health, by night and by day, at home and in crowds, he will 
watch over you with tenderness inexpressible. He will 
‘make you lie down in green pastures, lead you beside the 
still waters, and guide you in paths of righteousness, for his 
name’s sake. He will prepare a table before you in the © 
presence of your enemies, and cause your cup to run over 
with blessings. When you pass through the waters of afflic- 
tion, he will be with you, and through the rivers, they shall 
not overflow you.. When you walk through the fire, you 
shall not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle on you.” 
From their native heavens, he will commission those charm- 
ing twin-sisters, Goodness and Mercy, to descend and ‘ fol- 
low you all your days.” 

But if you wish God to be your guide and your friend, 
you must conform to his pleasure. Certainly you cannot 
wonder, that the infinitely Wise should prefer his own wis- 
dom to yours, and that he should choose for his children 
their allotments, rather than leave them to choose for them- 
selves. That part of his pleasure, which you are to obey, 


374 TIMOTHY DWIGHT. 


is all summed up in the single word, Duty, and is perfectly 
disclosed in the Scriptures. The whole scheme is so formed 
as to be plain, easy, profitable, and delightful; profitable in 
hand, delightful in the possession. Every part and precept 
of the whole, is calculated for this end, and will make you 
only wise, good, and happy. 

Life has been often styled an ocean, and our progress 
through it a voyage. The ocean is tempestuous and billowy, 
overspread by a cloudy sky, and fraught beneath with 
shelves and quicksands. The voyage is eventful beyond 
comprehension, and at the same time full of uncertainty, 
and replete with danger. Every adventurer needs to be 
well prepared for whatever may befall him, and well secured 
against the manifold hazards of losing his course, sinking in 
the abyss, or of being wrecked against the shore. 

These evils have existed at all times. ‘The present, and 
that part of the past which is known to you by experience, 
has seen them multiplied beyond example. It has seen the 
ancient and acknowledged standards of thinking violently 
thrown down. Religion, morals, government, and the esti- 
mate formed by man of crimes and virtues, and of all the 
means of usefulness and enjoyment, have been questioned, 
attacked, and in various places, and with respect to millions 
of the human race, finally overthrown. A _licentiousness 
of opinion and conduct, daring, outrageous, and rending 
asunder every bond, formed by God or man, has taken place 
of former good sense and sound morals, and has long threat- ° 
ened the destruction of human good. Industry, cunning, 
and fraud have toiled with unrivalled exertions, to convert 
man into a savage, and the world into a desert. A wretched 
and hypocritical philanthropy, also, not less mischievous,’ has — 
stalked forth as the companion of these ravagers: a philan- 
thropy born in a dream, bred in a novel, and living only 
in professions. This guardian genius of human interests, 
this friend of human rights, this redresser of human wrongs, 


THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 375 


is yet without a heart to feel, and without a hand to bless. 
But she is well furnished with lungs, with eyes, and a tongue. 
She can talk, and sigh, and weep at pleasure, but can nei- 
ther pity nor give. The objects of her attachment are either 
knayves and villains at home, or unknown sufferers beyond 
her reach abroad. To the former, she ministers the sword 
and the dagger, that they may fight their way into place, 
and power, and profit. At the latter, she only looks through 
a telescope of fancy, as an astronomer searches for stars 
invisible to the eye. To every real object of charity within 
her reach, she complacently says, ‘‘ Be thou warmed, and be 
thou filled; depart in peace.”’ 

By the daring spirit, the vigorous efforts, and the ingenious 
cunning, so industriously exerted on the one hand, and the 
smooth and gentle benevolence, so softly professed on the 
other, multitudes have been, and you easily may be, destroyed. 
The mischief has indeed been met, resisted, and overcome; but 
it has the heads and the lives of the Hydra, and its wounds, 
which at times have seemed deadly, are much more readily 
healed, than any good man could wish, than any sober man 
could expect. Hope not to escape the assaults of this enemy : 
To feel that you are in danger, will ever be a preparation 
for your safety. But it will be only such a preparation ; 
your deliverance must ultimately and only flow from your 
Maker. Resolve, then, to commit yourselves to him with a 
cordial reliance on his wisdom, power, and protection. Con- 
sider how much you have at stake, that you are bound to 
eternity, that your existence will be immortal, and that you 
will either rise to endless glory or be lost in absolute perdi- 
tion. Heaven is your proper home. The path, which I 
have recommended to you, will conduct you safely and cer- 
tainly to that happy world. Fill up life, therefore, with 
obedience to God, with faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
repentance unto life, the obedience to the two great com- 
mands of the Gospel, with supreme love to God and 


876 . TIMOTHY DWIGHT. 


universal good-will to men, the obedience to the two great 
commands of the law. On all your sincere endeavors to 
honor him, and befriend your fellow-men, he will smile; every 
virtuous attempt he will bless: every act of obedience he 
will reward. Life in this manner will be pleasant amid all 
its sorrows; and beams of hope will continually shine 
through the gloom, by which it is so often overcast. Virtue, 
the seed that cannot die, planted from heaven, and cultivated 
by the divine hand, will grow up in your hearts with 
increasing vigor, and blossom in your lives with supernal 
beauty. Your path will be that of the gust, and will glori- 
ously resemble the dawning light, ‘‘ which shines brighter 
and brighter, to the perfect day.” Peace will take you by 
the hand, and offer herself as the constant and delightful 
companion of your progress. Hope will walk before you, 
and with an unerring finger point out your course; and Joy, 
at the end of the journey, will open her arms to receive you. 
You will ‘wait on the Lord, and renew your strength; will 
mount up with wings, as eagles; willrun, and not be weary ; 
will walk, and not faint.” 



















































































XA. 
THE FIRST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. 


Knox. 

[Joun Knox, the Reformer of Scotland—‘“he who never feared the 
face of man,’’ as the Earl of Morton testified at his burial—was born 
at Gifford, in 1505. At the age of twenty-five, having graduated at 
the University of St. Andrew’s, he was ordained a Roman Catholic 
priest. Twelve years later he renounced its communion and preached 
the Protestant faith. Fearless, sagacious, blunt in speech, and of 
fiery zeal, he would not be silenced. Persecuted, his life repeatedly 
in danger from assassins, for two years a wretched prisoner in French 
galleys, later an exile with Calvin in Geneva, yet he saw with joy 
the establishment of the Reformed kirk in Scotland, 1560, and wrote 
a valuable history of the Scottish Reformation. The closing years of 
his life were full of ardent labors at home, till—“ weary of the world,” 
as he said—he sank to rest in Edinburgh, November 24th 1572. His 
religious writings are published in a volume of the “British Re- 
formers.’’ Only three of his Sermons are preserved. | 


“ Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert, that he should be 
tempted of the devil.’’—Matthew iv. 1. 


THE cause moving me to treat of this place of Scripture 
is, that such as by the inscrutable providence of God fall into 
divers temptations, judge not themselves by reason thereof to 
be less acceptable in God’s presence. But, on the contrary, 
having the way prepared to victory by Christ Jesus, they shall 
not fear above measure the crafty assaults of that subtle ser- 
pent Satan—but with joy and bold courage, having such a 
guide as here is pointed forth, such a champion, and such wea- 
pons as here are to be found (if with obedience we will hear, 
and unfeigned faith believe), we may assure ourselves of God’s 
present favor, and of final victory, by the means of Him, 
who, for our safeguard and deliverance, entered in the battle, 
and triumphed over his adversary, and all his raging fury. 

(377) 


378 JOHN KNOX. 


And that this being heard and understood, may the better 
be kept in memory; this order, by God’s grace, we propose 
to observe, in treating the matter: First, What this word 
temptation meaneth, and how it is used within the Scrip- 
tures. Secondly, Who is here tempted, and at what time 
this temptation happened. Thirdly, How and by what 
means he was tempted. ourthly, Why he should suffer 
these temptations, and what fruit ensues to us from the 
same. 

First. Temptation, or to tempt, in the Scriptures of God, 
is called to try, to prove, or to assault the valor, the power, 
the will, the pleasure, or the wisdom—whether it be of God, 
or of creatures. And it is taken sometimes in good part, 
as when it is said that God tempted Abraham; God tempted 
the people of Israel; that is, God did try and examine them, 
not for his own knowledge, to whom nothing is hid, but to 
certify others how obedient Abraham was to God’s command- 
ment, and how weak and inferior the Israelites were in their 
journey towards the promised land. And tnis temptation is 
always good, because it proceeds immediately from God, to 
open and make manifest the secret motions of men’s hearts, 
the puissance and power of God’s word, and the great lenity 
and gentleness of God towards the iniquities (yea, horrible 
sins and rebellions) of those whom he hath received into his 
regimen and care. For who could have believed that the 
bare word of God could so have moved the heart and affec- 
tions of Abraham, that to obey God’s commandment he 
determined to kill, with his own hand, his best beloved son 
Isaac? who could have trusted that, so many torments as 
Job suffered, he should not speak in all his great temptations 
one foolish word against God? or who could have thought 
that God so mercifully should have pardoned so many, and 
so manifest transgressions committed by his people in the 
desert, and yet that his mercy never utterly left them, but 
still continued with them, till at length he performed his 


~ 


THE FIRST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. 379 


promise made to Abraham? Who, I say, would have been 
persuaded of these things, unless by trials and temptations 
taken of his creatures by God, they had come by revelation 
made in his Holy Scriptures to our knowledge? And so 
this kind of temptation is profitable, good, and necessary, 
as a thing proceeding: from God, who is the fountain of all 
goodness, to the manifestation of his own glory, and to the 
profit of the sufferer, however the flesh may judge in the 
hour of temptation. Otherwise temptation, or to tempt, is 
taken in evil part; that is, he that assaults or assails intends 
destruction and confusion to him that is assaulted. As when 
Satan tempted the woman in the garden, Job by divers tribu- 
lations, and David by adultery. The scribes and Pharisees 
tempted Christ by divers means, questions, and subtleties. 
And of this matter, saith St. James, ‘God tempteth no 
man;’’ that is, by temptation proceeding immediately from 
him, he intends no man’s destruction. And here you shall 
note, that although Satan appears sometimes to prevail 
against God’s elect, yet he is ever frustrated of his final 
purpose. By temptation he led Eve and David from the 
obedience of God, but he could not retain them for ever 
under his thraldom. Power was granted to him to spoil Job 
of his substance and children, and to strike his body with a 
plague and sickness most vile and fearful, but he could not 
compel his mouth to blaspheme God’s majesty; and, there- 
fore, although we are laid open sometimes, as it were, to 
tribulation for a time, it is that when he has poured forth 
the venom of his malice against God’s elect, it may return 
to his own confusion, and that the deliverance of God’s 
children may be more to his glory, and the comfort of the 
afflicted: knowing that his hand is so powerful, his mercy 
and good-will so prompt, that he delivers his little ones from 
their cruel-enemy, even as David did his sheep and lambs 
from the mouth of the lion. For a benefit received in 
extreme danger more moves us than the preservation from 


380 JOHN KNOX. 


ten thousand perils, so that we fall not into them. And yet 
to preserve from dangers and perils so that we fall not into 
them, whether they are of body or spirit, is no less the work 
of God, than to deliver from them; but the weakness of our 
faith does not perceive it: this I leave at the present. 

Also; to tempt means simply to prove, or try without any 
determinate purpose of profit or damage to ensue; as when 
the mind doubteth of any thing, and therein desires to be 
satisfied, without great love or extreme hatred of the thing 
that is tempted or tried. As the Queen of Sheba came to 
tempt Solomon in subtle questions. David tempted, that is, 
tried himself if he could go in harness. (1 Sam. xvii.) And 
Gideon said, ‘“‘ Let not thine anger kindle against me, if I 
tempt thee once again.” This famous queen, not fully 
trusting the report and fame that was spread of Solomon, by 
subtle questions desired to prove his wisdom; at the first, 
neither extremely hating nor fervently loving the person of 
the king. And David, as a man not accustomed to harness, 
would try how he was able to go, and behave and fashion 
himself therein, before he would hazard battle with Goliath 
so armed. And Gideon, not satisfied in his conscience by 
the first sign that he received, desired, without contempt or 
hatred of God, a second time to be certified of his yocation. 
In this sense must the apostle be expounded when he com- 
mands us to tempt, that is, to try and examine ourselves, if 
we stand in the faith. Thus much for the term. 

Now to the person tempted, and to the time and place of 
his temptation. The person tempted is the only well-beloved 
Son of God; the time was immediately after his baptism ; 
and the place was the desert or wilderness. But that we 
derive advantage from what is related, we must consider the 
same more profoundly. That the Son of God was thus 
tempted gives instruction to us, that temptations, although 
they be ever so grievous and fearful, do not separate us 
from God’s favor and mercy, but rather declare the great 


THE FIRST, TEMPPRATION. OF CHRIST. 381 


graces of God to appertain to us, which makes Satan to rage 
as a roaring lion; for against none does he so fiercely fight, 
as against those of whose hearts Christ has taken possession. 

The time of Christ’s temptation is here most diligently to 
be noted. And that was, as Mark and Luke witness, imme- 
diately after the voice of God the Father had commended 
his Son to the world, and had visibly pointed to him by the 
sign of the Holy Ghost; he was led or moved by the Spirit 
to go to a wilderness, where forty days he remained fasting 
among the wild beasts. This Spirit which led Christ into 
the wilderness was not the devil, but the holy Spirit of God 
the Father, by whom Christ, as touching his human and 
manly nature, was conducted and led; likewise by the same 
Spirit he was strengthened and made strong, and, finally, 
raised up from the dead. The Spirit of God, I say, led 
Christ to the place of his battle, where he endured the com- 
bat for the whole forty days and nights. As Luke saith, 
“He was tempted,”’ but in the end most vehemently, after 
his continual fasting, and that he began to be hungry. 
Upon this forty days and this fasting of Christ do our 
papists found and build their Lent; for, say they, all the 
actions of Christ are our instructions; what he did we ought 
to follow. But he fasted forty days, therefore we ought to 
do the like. I answer, that if we ought to follow all Christ’s 
actions, then ought we neither to eat or drink for the space 
of forty days, for so fasted Christ: we ought to go upon the 
waters with our feet; to cast out devils by our word; to heal 
and cure all sorts of maladies; to call again the dead to life ; 
for so did Christ. This I write only that men may see the 
vanity of those who, boasting themselves of wisdom, have 
become mad fools. 

Did Christ fast thus forty days to teach us superstitious 
fasting? Can the papists assure me, or any other man, 
which were the forty days that Christ fasted? plain it is he 
fasted the forty days and nights that immediately followed 


382 JOHN KNOX. 


his baptism, but which they were, or in what month was the 
day of his baptism, Scripture does not express ; and although 
the day were expressed, am I or any Christian bound to 
counterfeit Christ’s actions as the ape counterfeits the act 
or work of man? He himself requires no such obedience of 
his true followers, but saith to the apostles, ‘‘ Go and preach 
the gospel to all nations, baptizing them in the name of the 
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; commanding them to 
observe and keep all that I have commanded you.” Here 
Christ Jesus requires the observance of his precepts and 
commandments, not of his actions, except in so far as he 
had also commanded them; and so must the apostle be un- 
derstood when he saith, ‘‘ Be followers of Christ, for Christ 
hath sufiered for us, that we should follow his footsteps,” 
which cannot be understood of every action of Christ, either 
in the mystery of our redemption, or in his actions and mar- 
vellous works, but only of those which he hath commanded 
us to observe. But where the papists are so diligent in 
establishing their dreams and fantasies, they lose the profit 
that here is to be gathered,—that is, why Christ fasted those 
forty days; which were a doctrine more necessary for Chris- 
tians, than to corrupt the simple hearts with superstition, as 
though the wisdom of God, Christ Jesus, had taught us no 
other mystery by his fasting than the abstinence from flesh, 
or once on the day to eat flesh, for the space of forty days. 
God hath taken a just vengeance upon the pride of such 
men, while he thus confounds the wisdom of those that do 
most glory in wisdom, and strikes with blindness such as will 
be guides and lanterns to the feet of others, and yet refuse 
themselves to hear or follow the light of God’s word. From 
such deliver thy poor flock, O Lord! 

The causes of Christ’s fasting these forty days I find | 
chiefly to be two: The first, to witness to the world the dig- 
nity and excellence of his vocation, which Christ, after his 
baptism, was to take upon him openly; the other, to declare 


THE FIRST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. 383 


that he entered into battle willingly for our cause, and does, 
as it were, provoke his adversary to assault him: although 
Christ Jesus, in the eternal counsel of his Father, was 
appointed to be the Prince of peace, the angel (that is, the 
messenger) of his testament, and he alone that could fight 
our battles for us, yet he did not enter in execution of it, in 
the sight of men, till he was commended to mankind by the 
voice of his heavenly Father; and as he was placed and 
anointed by the Holy Ghost by a visible sign given to the 
eyes of men. After which time he was led to the desert, 
and fasted, as before is said; and this he did to teach us 
with what fear, carefulness, and reverence the messengers 
of the word ought to enter on their vocation, which is not 
only most excellent (for who is worthy to be God’s ambas- 
sador ?) but also subject to most extreme troubles and dan- 
gers. For he that is appointed pastor, watchman, or preacher, 
if he feed not with his whole power, if he warn and admonish 
not when he sees the snare come, and if, in doctrine, he divide 
not the word righteously, the blood and souls of those that 
perish for lack of food, admonition, and doctrine, shall be 
required of his hand. 

But to our purpose; that Christ exceeded not the space 
of forty days in his fasting, he did it to the imitation of Moses 
and Hlias; of whom, the one before the receiving of the law, 
and the other before the communication and reasoning which 
he had with God in Mount Horeb, in which he was com- 
manded to anoint Hazael king over Syria, and Jehu king 
over Israel, and Elisha to be prophet, fasted the same num- 
ber of days. The events that ensued and followed this super- 
natural fasting of these two servants of God, Moses and 
Elias, impaired and diminished the tyranny of the kingdom 
of Satan. For by the law came the knowledge of sin, the 
damnation of such impieties, specially of idolatry, and such 
as the devil had invented; and, finally, by the law came 
such a revelation of God’s will, that no man could justly 


394 JOHN KNOX. 


afterward excuse his sin by ignorance, by which the devil 
before had blinded many. So that the law, although it 
might not renew and purge the heart, for that the spirit of 
Christ Jesus worketh by faith only, yet it was a bridle that 
did hinder and stay the rage of external wickedness in many, 
and was a schoolmaster that led unto Christ. . For when man 
can find no power in himself to do that which is commanded, 
and perfectly understands, and when he believes that the 
curse of God is pronounced against all those that abide not 
in everything that is commanded in God’s law to do them— 
the man, I say, that understands and knows his own corrupt 
nature and God’s severe judgment, most gladly will receive 
the free redemption offered by Christ Jesus, which is the only 
victory that overthrows Satan and his power. And so by 
the giving of the law God greatly weakened, impaired, and 
made frail the tyranny and kingdom of the devil. In the 
days of Elias, the devil had so prevailed that kings and rulers 
made open war against God, killing his prophets, destroying 
his ordinances, and building up idolatry, which did so pre- 
vail, that the prophet complained that of all the true fearers 
and worshippers of God he was left alone, and wicked Jezebel 
sought his life also. After this, his fasting and complaint, 
he was sent by God to anoint the persons aforenamed, who 
took.such vengeance upon the wicked and obstinate idolaters, 
that he who escaped the sword of Hazael fell into the hands 
of Jehu, and those whom Jehu left, escaped not God’s ven- 
geance under Elisha. 

The remembrance of this was fearful to Satan, for, at the 
coming of Christ Jesus, impiety was in the highest degree 
amongst those that pretended most knowledge of God’s will; 
and Satan was at such rest in his kingdom, that the priests, 
scribes, and Rharisees had taken away the key of knowledge ; 
that is, they had so obscured and darkened God’s Holy 
Scriptures, by false glosses and vain traditions, that neither 
would they enter themselves into the kingdom of God, nor 


THE FIRST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. 385 


suffer and permit others to enter; but with violence re- 
strained, and with tyranny struck back from the right way, 
that is, from Christ Jesus himself, such as would have entered 
into the possession of life everlasting by him. Satan, I say, 
having such dominion over the chief rulers of the visible 
church, and espying in Christ such graces as before he had 
not seen in man, and considering him to follow in fasting the 
footsteps of Moses and Elias, no doubt greatly feared that 
the quietness and rest of his most obedient servants, the 
priests, and their adherents, would be troubled by Christ. 
And, therefore, by all engines and craft, he assaults him to 
see what advantage he could have of him. And Christ did 
not repel him, as by the power of his Godhead he might 
have done, that he should not tempt him, but permitted him 
to spend all his artillery, and received the strokes and 
assaults of Satan’s temptations in his own body, to the end 
he might weaken and enfeeble the strength and tyrannous 
power of our adversary by his long-suffering. For thus, 
methinks, our Master and Champion, Christ Jesus, provoked 
our enemy to battle: ‘“‘Satan, thou gloriest of thy power 
and victories over mankind, that there is none able to with- 
stand thy assaults, nor escape thy darts, but at one time or 
other thou givest him a wound: lo! I am a man like to my 
brethren, having flesh and blood, and all properties of man’s 
nature (sin, which is thy venom, excepted); tempt, try, and 
assault me; I offer you here a place most convenient—the 
wilderness. There shall be no mortal to comfort me against 
thy assaults; thou shalt have time sufficient; do what thou 
canst, I shall not fly the place of battle. If thou become 
victor, thou shalt still continue in possession of thy kingdom 
in this wretched world; but if thou canst not prevail against 
me, then must thy prey and unjust spoil be taken from thee ; 
thou must grant thyself vanquished and confounded, and 
must be compelled to leave off from all accusation of the 


members of my body; for to them appertains the fruit of my 
13 2B 


386 JOHN KNOX. 


battle, my victory is theirs, as I am appointed to take the 
punishment of their sins in my body.” 

O dear sisters, what comfort ought the remembrance of 
these signs to be to our hearts! Christ Jesus hath fought 
our battle; he himself hath taken us into his care and pro- 
tection; however the devil may rage by temptations, be they 
spiritual or corporeal, he is not able to bereave us out of the 
hand of the almighty Son of God. ‘To him be all glory for 
his mercies most abundantly poured upon us ! 

There remains yet to be spoken of, the time when our 
Lord was tempted, which began immediately after his bap- 
tism. Whereupon we have to note and mark, that although 
the malice of Satan never ceases, but always seeks for means 
to trouble the godly, yet sometimes he rages more fiercely 
than others, and that is commonly when God begins to mani- 
fest his love and favor to any of his children, and at the end 
of their battle, when they are nearest to obtain final victory. 
The devil, no doubt, did at all times envy the huimble spirit 
that was in Abel, but he did not stir up the cruel heart of 
Cain against him till God declared his favor towards him, 
by accepting his sacrifice. The same we find in Jacob, 
Joseph, David, and most evidently in Christ Jesus. How 
Satan raged at the tidings of Christ’s nativity! what blood 
he eaused to be shed on purpose to have murdered Christ in 
his infancy! The evangelist St. Matthew witnesses that in 
all the coasts and borders of Bethlehem the children of two 
years old and of less age were murdered without mercy. A 
fearful spectacle and horrid example of insolent and un- 
accustomed tyranny! And what is the cause moving Satan 
thus to rage against innocents, considering that by reason 
of their imperfections, they could not hurt his kingdom at 
that instant? Oh! the crafty eye of Satan looked further 
than to the present time; he heard reports by the three wise 
men, that they had learned, by the appearance of a star, 
that the King of the Jews was born; and he was not igno- 


THE FIRST THUPTATION OF CHRIST. 387 


rant that the time prophesied of Christ’s coming was then 
instant; for a stranger was clad with the crown and sceptre 
in the kingdom of Judah. The angel had declared the glad 
tidings to the shepherds, that a Saviour, which was Christ 
the Lord, was born in the city of David. All these tidings 
inflamed the wrath and malice of Satan, for he perfectly 
understood that the coming of the promised Seed was 
_ appointed to his confusion, and to the breaking down of his 
head and tyranny; and therefore he raged most cruelly, 
even at the first hearing of Christ’s birth, thinking that 
although he could not hinder nor withstand his coming, yet 
he could shorten his days upon earth, lest by long life and 
peaceable quietness in it, the number of good men, by 
Christ’s doctrine and virtuous life, should be multiplied ; and 
so he strove to cut him away among the other children before 
he could open his mouth on his Father’s message. Oh, cruel 
serpent! in vain dost thou spend thy venom, for the days 
of God’s elect thou canst not shorten! And when the wheat 
is fallen on the ground, then doth it most multiply. 

But from these things mark, dear sisters, what hath been 
the practice of the devil from the beginning—most cruelly 
to rage against God’s children, when God begins to show 
them his mercy. And, therefore, marvel not, dearly beloved, 
although the like come unto you. If Satan fume or roar 
against you, whether it be against your bodies by persecu- 
tion, or inwardly in your conscience by a spiritual battle, be 
not discouraged, as though you were less acceptable in God’s 
presence, or as if Satan might at any time prevail against 
you. No: your temptations and storms that arise so sud- 
denly, argue and witness that the seed which is sown, is 
fallen on good ground, begins to take root, and shall, by 
God’s grace, bring forth fruit abundantly in due season and 
convenient time. That is it which Satan fears, and there- 
fore thus he rages, and shall rage against you, thinking that 
if he can repulse you now suddenly in the beginning, that 


388 JOHN KNOX. 


then you shall be at all times an easy prey, never able to 
resist his assaults. But as my hope is good, so shall my 
prayer be, that so you may be strengthened, that the world 
and Satan himself may perceive or understand that God 
fights your battle. For you remember, sisters, that being 
present with you and treating of the same place, I ad- 
monished you that Satan could not long sleep when his 
kingdom was threatened. And therefore I willed you, if — 
you were in mind to continue with Christ, to prepare your- 
selves for the day of temptation. The person of the speaker 
is wretched, miserable, and nothing to be regarded, but the 
things that were spoken, are the infallible and eternal truth 
of God; without observation of which, life neither can nor 
shall come to mankind. God grant you continuance to the 
end. 

This much have I briefly spoken of the temptation of 
Christ Jesus, who was tempted; and of the time and place 
of his temptation. Now remains to be spoken how he was 
tempted, and by what means. ‘The most part of expositors 
think that all this temptation was in spirit and imagination 
only, the corporeal senses being nothing moved. I will con- 
tend with no man in such cases, but patiently will I suffer 
every man to abound in his own knowledge; and without 
prejudice of any man’s estimations, I offer my judgment to 
be weighed and considered by Christian charity. It appears 
to me by the plain text, that Christ suffered this temptation 
in body and spirit. Likewise, as the hunger which Christ 
suffered, and the desert in which he remained, were not 
things offered to the imagination, but that the body did 
verily remain in the wilderness among beasts, and after forty 
days did hunger and faint for lack of food; so the external 
ear did hear the tempting words of Satan, which entered into 
the knowledge of the soul, and which, repelling the venom 
of such temptations, caused the tongue to speak and confute 
Satan, to our unspeakable comfort and consolation. «It 


THE FIRST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. 389 


appears also that the body of Christ Jesus was carried by 
Satan from the wilderness unto the temple of Jerusalem, and 
that it was placed upon the pinnacle of the same temple, 
from whence it was carried to a high mountain and there 
tempted. If any man can show the contrary hereof by the 
plain Scriptures of God, with all submission and thanks- 
giving, I will prefer his judgment to my own; but if the 
matter stand only in probability-and opinion of men, then 
it is lawful for me to believe as the Scripture here speaks. 
That is, that Satan spake and Christ answered, and Satan 
took him and carried him from one place to another. Be- 
sides the evidence of the text affirming that Satan was per- 
mitted to carry the body of Christ from place to place, and 
yet was not permitted to execute any further tyranny against 
it, is most singular comfort to such as are afflicted or troubled 
in body or spirit. The weak and feeble conscience of man 
under such temptations, commonly gathers and collects a 
false consequence. For man reasons thus: The body or the 
spirit is vexed by assaults and temptations of Satan, and he 
troubles or molests it, therefore God is angry with it, and 
takes no care of it. I answer, Tribulations or grievous 
vexations of body or of mind are never signs of God’s dis- 
pleasure against the sufferer, neither yet does it follow that 
God has cast away the care of his creatures, because he 
permits them to be molested and vexed for a time. For 
if any sort of tribulation were the infallible sign of God’s 
displeasure, then should we condemn the best beloved child- 
ren of God. But of this we may speak hereafter. Now to 
the temptation. 

Verse 2d. ‘“ And when he had fasted forty days and forty 
nights, he was afterwards hungry.” Verse 3d. ‘Then came 
to him the tempter, and said, If you be the Son of God, com- 
mand that these stones be made bread,” &. Why Christ 
fasted forty days and would not exceed the same, without 
sense and feeling of hunger, is before touched upon, that is, 


390 JOHN KNOX. 


he would provoke the devil to battle by the wilderness and 
long abstinence, but he would not usurp or arrogate any more 
to himself in that case than God had wrought with others, 
his servants and messengers before. But Christ Jesus (as St. 
Augustine more amply declares), without feeling of hunger, 
might have endured the whole year, or to time without end, 
as well as he did endure the space of forty days. For the 
nature of mankind was sustained those forty days by the 
‘invisible power of God, which is at all times of equal power. 
But Christ, willing to offer further occasion to Satan to pro- 
ceed in tempting of him, permitted the human nature to 
crave earnestly that which it lacked, that is to say, refresh- 
ing of meat; which Satan perceiving took occasion, as before, 
to tempt and assault. Some judge that Satan tempted Christ 
to gluttony, but this appears little to agree with the purpose 
of the Holy Ghost; who shows us this history to let us 
understand that Satan never ceases to oppugn the children 
of God, but continually, by one mean or other, drives or 
provokes them to some wicked opinions of their God; and 
to have them desire stones to be converted into bread, or to 
desire hunger to be satisfied, has never been sin, nor yet a 
wicked opinion of God. And therefore I doubt not but the 
temptation was more spiritual, more subtle, and more danger- 
ous. Satan had respect to the voice of God, which had pro- 
nounced Christ to be his well-beloved Son, &c. Against this — 
voice he fights, as his nature is ever to do against the assured 
and immutable word of God: for such is his malice against 
God, and against his chosen children, that where and to 
whom God pronounces love and mercy, to these he threatens. 
displeasure and damnation ; and where God threatens death, 
there is he bold to pronounce life; and for this cause is 
Satan called a liar from the beginning. And so the purpose 
of Satan was to drive Christ into desperation, that he should 
not believe the former voice of God his Father; which 
appears to be the meaning of this temptation: ‘‘ Thou hast 


THE FIRST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. 391 


heard,” would Satan say, ‘‘a voice proclaimed in the air, 
that thou wast the beloved Son of God, in whom his soul 
was well pleased; but mayst thou not be judged more than 
mad, and weaker than the brainless fool if thou believest any 
such promise? Where are the signs of his love? Art thou 
not cast out from comfort of all creatures? Thou art in 
worse case than the brute beasts, for every day they hunt 
for their prey, and the earth produces grass and herbs for 
their sustenance, so that none of them are pined and consumed 
away by hunger ; but thou hast fasted forty days and nights, 
ever waiting for some relief and comfort from above, but thy 
best provision is hard stones! If thou dost glory in thy 
God, and dost verily believe the promise that is made, com- 
mand that these stones be bread. But evident it is, that so 
thou canst not do; for if thou couldst, or if thy God would 
have showed thee any such pleasure, thou mightest long ago 
have removed thy hunger, and needest not have endured this 
languishing for lack of food. But seeing thou hast long 
continued thus, and no provision is made for thee, it is 
vanity longer to believe any such promise, and therefore 
despair of any help from God’s hand, and oe for thy- 
self by some other means !”’ 

Many words have I used here, dearly beloved, but I can- 
not express the thousandth part of the malicious despite 
which lurked in this one temptation of Satan. It was a 
mocking of Christ and of his obedience. It was a plain 
denial of God’s promise. It was the triumphing voice of 
him that appeared to have gotten victory. Oh how bitter 
this temptation was, no creature can understand, but such 
as feel the grief of such darts as Satan casts at the tender 
conscience of those that gladly would rest and repose in 
God, and in the promises of his mercy. But here is to be 
noted the ground and foundation. The conclusion of Satan 
is this: Thou art none of God’s elect, much less his well- 
beloved Son. His reason is this: Thou art in trouble and 


392 JOHN KNOX. 


findest no relief. There the foundation of the temptation 
was Christ’s poverty, and the lack of food without hope of 
remedy to be sent from God. And it is the same temptation 
which the devil objected to him by the princes of the priests 
in his grievous torments upon the cross; for thus they cried, 
** If he be the Son of God, let him come down from the cross, 
and we will believe in him; he trusted in God, let him deliver 
him, if he have pleasure in him.’”’ As though they would say, 
God is the deliverer of his servants from troubles ; God never 
permits those that fear him to come to confusion; this man 
we see in extreme trouble; if he be the Son of God, or even 
a true worshipper of his name, he will deliver him from this 
calamity. If he deliver him not, but suffer him to perish 
in these anguishes, then it is an assured sign that God has 
rejected him as a hypocrite, that shall have no portion of his 
glory. Thus, I say, Satan takes occasion to tempt, and 
moves also others to judge and condemn God's elect and 
chosen children, by reason that troubles are multiplied upon 
them. 

But with what weapons we ought to fight against such 
enemies and assaults, we shall learn in the answer of Christ 
Jesus, which follows: But he, answering, said, ‘‘It is writ- 
ten, Man lives not by bread only, but by every word which 
proceeds out of the mouth of God.” This answer of Christ 
proves the sentence which we have brought of the aforesaid 
temptation, to be the very meaning of the Holy Ghost; for 
unless the purpose of Satan had been to have removed Christ 
from all hope of God’s merciful providence towards him in 
that his necessity, Christ had not answered directly to his 
words, saying, ‘‘Command that these stones be made bread.”’ 
But Christ Jesus, perceiving his art and malicious subtilty, 
answered directly to his meaning, his words nothing regarded; 
by which Satan was so confounded, that he was ashamed to — 
reply any further. 

But that you may the better understand the meaning of 


THE FIRST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. 893 


Christ’s answer, we will express and repeat it over in more 
words. ‘Thou laborest, Satan,’’ would Christ say, ‘‘ to bring 
into my heart a doubt and suspicion of my Father’s promise, 
which was openly proclaimed in my baptism, by reason of my 
hunger, and that I lack all carnal provision. Thou art bold 
to affirm that God takes no care of me, but thou art a deceit- 
ful and false corrupt sophister, and thy argument too is vain, 
and full of blasphemies; for thou bindest God’s love, mercy, 
and providence, to the having or wanting of bodily provision, 
which no part of God’s Scriptures teach us, but rather the 
express contrary. As itis written, ‘Man liveth not by bread 
alone, but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of 
God.’ That is, the very life and felicity of man consists not 
in the abundance of bodily things, or, the possession and 
having of them makes no man blessed or happy; neither 
shall the lack of them be the cause of his final misery; but 
the very life of man consists in God, and in his promises 
pronounced by his own mouth, unto which whoso cleaves un- 
feignedly, shall live the life everlasting. And although all 
creatures in earth forsake him, yet shall not his bodily life 
perish till the time appointed by God approach. For God 
has means to feed, preserve, and maintain, unknown to man’s 
reason, and contrary to the common course of nature. He 
fed his people Israel in the desert forty years without the 
provision of man. He preserved Jonah in the whale’s belly; 
and maintained and kept the bodies of the three children in 
the furnace of fire. Reason and the natural man could have 
seen nothing in these cases but destruction and death, and 
could have judged nothing but that God had cast away the | 
care of these his creatures, and yet his providence was most 
vigilant towards them in the extremity of their dangers, 
from which he did so deliver them, and in the midst of them 
did so assist them, that his glory, which is his mercy and 
goodness, did more appear and shine after their troubles, 
than it could have done if they had fallen in them. And 


394 JOHN KNOX. 


therefore I measure not the truth and favor of God, by hay- 
ing or by lacking of bodily necessities, but by the promise 
which he has made to me. As he himself is immutable, so 
is his word and promise constant, which I believe, and to 
which I will adhere, and so cleave, whatever can come to the 
body outwardly.” 

In this answer of Christ we may perceive what weapons 
are to be used against our adversary the devil, and how we 
may confute his arguments, which craftily, and of malice, he 
makes against God’s elect. Christ might have repulsed Sa- 
tan with a word, or by commanding him to silence, as he to 
whom all power was given in heaven and earth ; but it pleased 
his mercy to teach us how to use the sword of the Holy Ghost, 
which is the word of God, in battle against our spiritual 
enemy. ‘The Scripture that Christ brings is written in the 
eighth chapter of Deuteronomy. It was spoken by Moses a 
little before his death, to establish the people in God’s mer- 
ciful providence. For in the same chapter, and in certain 
others that go before, he reckons the great travail and divers 
dangers with the extreme necessities that they had sustained 
in the desert, the space of forty years, and yet, notwith- 
standing how constant God had been in keeping and perform- 
ing his promise, for throughout all perils he had conducted 
them to the sight and borders of the promised land. And 
so this Scripture more directly answers to the temptation 
of Satan; for thus does Satan reason, as before is said, 
‘Thou art in poverty and hast no provision to sustain thy 
life. Therefore God takes no regard nor care of thee, as 
he doth over his chosen children.” Christ Jesus answered : 
“Thy argument is false and vain; for poverty or necessity 
precludes not the providence or care of God; which is easy 
to be proved by the people of God, Israel, who, in the desert, 
oftentimes lacked things necessary to the sustenance of life, 
and for lack of the same they grudged and murmured; yet 
the Lord never cast away the providence and care of them, 


THE FIRST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. 895 


but according to the word that he had once pronounced, to 
wit, that they were his peculiar people; and according to 
the promise made to Abraham, and to them before their 
departure from Egypt, he still remained their conductor and 
guide, till he placed them in peaceable possession of the land 
of Canaan, their great infirmities and manifold transgres- 
sions notwithstanding.” 

Thus are we taught, I say, by Christ Jesus, to repulse 
Satan and his assaults by the word of God, and to apply the 
examples of his mercies, which he has shown to others before 
us, to our own souls in the hour of temptation, and in the 
time of our trouble. For what God doth to one at any time, 
the same appertains to all that depend upon God and his 
promises. And, therefore, however we are assaulted by Sa- 
tan, our adversary, within the word of God is armor and 
weapons sufficient. The chief craft of Satan is to trouble 
those that begin to decline from his obedience, and to declare 
themselves enemies to iniquity, with divers assaults, the de- 
sign whereof is always the same, that is, to put variance 
betwixt them and God, into their conscience, that they 
should not repose and rest themselves in his assured prom- 
ises. And to persuade this, he uses and invents divers argu- 
ments. Sometimes he calls the sins of their youth, and 
which they have committed in the time of blindness, to their 
remembrance; very often he objects their unthankfulness 
towards God and present imperfections. By sickness, 
poverty, tribulations in their household, or by persecution, 
he can allege that God is angry, and regards them not. Or, 
by the spiritual cross, which few feel and fewer understand 
the utility and profit of, he would drive God’s children to 
desperation, and by infinite means more, he goeth about 
seeking, like a roaring lion, to undermine and destroy our 
faith. But it is impossible for him to prevail against us, 
unless we obstinately refuse to use the defence and weapons 
that God has offered. Yea, I say, that God’s elect cannot 


396 JOHN KNOX. 


refuse it, but seek for their Defender when the battle is most 
strong; for the sobs, groans, and lamentations of such as fight, 
yea, the fear they have lest they be vanquished, the calling and 
prayer for continuance, are the undoubted and right seeking 
of Christ our champion. We refuse not the weapon, although 
sometimes, by infirmity, we cannot use it as we would. It 
suffices that your hearts unfeignedly sob for greater strength, 
for continuance, and for final deliverance by Christ Jesus ; 
that which is wanting in us, his sufficiency doth supply; for 
it is he that fighteth and overcometh for us. But for bring- 
ing of the examples of the Scriptures, if God permit, in the 
end we shall speak more largely when it shall be treated why 
Christ permitted himself thus to be tempted. Sundry im- 
pediments now call me from writing in this matter, but, by 
God’s grace, at convenient leisure I purpose to finish, and 
to send it to you. I grant the matter that proceeds from 
me is not worthy of your pain and labor to read it; yet, 
seeing it is a testimony of my good mind towards you, I 
doubt not but you will accept it in good part. God, the 
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, grant unto you to find 
favor and mercy of the Judge, whose eyes and knowledge 
pierce through the secret cogitations of the heart, in the day 
of temptation, which shall come upon all flesh, according to 
that mercy which you (illuminated and directed by his Holy 
Spirit) have showed to the afflicted. Now the God of all 
comfort and consolation confirm and strengthen you in his 
power unto the end. Amen. 


XXV. 
CHRISTIAN HEROISM. 


SAURIN. 


[Jacques Saurin, a gifted and eloquent French Protestant preacher, 
the son of a Huguenot refugee, was born at Nimes, January 6th 
1677. He studied under able theologians at Geneva. After a few 
years’ ministry to a Walloon (or Belgian) congregation in London, he 
became pastor at the Hague, Holland. Here he diligently labored the 
last twenty-five years of his life, doing Gospel service, winning dis- 
tinction, and meeting envious attacks with patience. He died in 1730. 
Twelve volumes of his Sermons have been translated into English. 
This spirited rendering is by the late Rev. Robert Robinson. | 


“‘ He that ruleth his spirit, is better than he that taketh a city.” — 
Proverbs xvi. 32. 


WERE we to judge of these words by the first impressions 
they make on the mind, we should place them among such 
hyperbolical propositions as imagination forms to color and 
exceed truth. The mind on some occasions is so struck as 
to magnify the object in contemplation. The more sus- 
ceptible people are of lively impressions, the more subject 
they are to declamation and hyperbole. We find these 
maxims sometimes necessary in explaining the sacred au- 
thors. Were we to adhere scrupulously to their words, 
we should often mistake their meaning, and extend their 
thoughts beyond due bounds. The people of the east 
seldom express themselves with precision. A cloud inter- 
cepting a few rays of light is the ‘sun darkened.” A 
meteor in the air is “‘the powers of the heavens shaken.” 
Jonah in the belly of the fish, is a man ‘‘ down at the bottom 
of the mountains.”” Thunder is the ‘voice of Jehovah, 
powerful and full of majesty, dividing flames of fire, break- 


ing cedars of Lebanon, making Syrians skip, and stripping 
(397) 


398 JACQUES SAURIN., 


forests bare.” A swarm of insects is ‘‘a nation set in 
battle array, marching every one on his ways, not breaking 
their ranks, besieging a city, having the teeth of a lion, and 
the cheek teeth of a great lion.” Joel i. 6, and ii. 7, 9. 

If we be ever authorized to solve a difficult text by 
examining the license of hyperbolical style; if ever it be 
necessary to reduce hyperbole to precision, is it not so now 
in explaining the text before us, ‘‘ He that ruleth his spirit, 
is better than he that taketh a city’? What justness can 
there be in comparing a man who, by reflection, corrects his 
passions, with an hero, who, in virtue of concerted plans, 
great fatigues, spending days and nights on horseback, 
surmounting difficulties, enduring heats and colds, braving a 
variety of dangers, at last arrives, by marching through a 
shower of shot darkening the air, to cut through a squadron, 
to scale a wall, and to hoist his flag in a conquered city? 

But, however just this commentary may appear, you will 
make no use of it here, unless you place Christianity in the 
exercise of easy virtues, and, after the example of most 
men, accommodate religion to your passions, instead of 
reforming your passions by religion. Endeavor to form 
principles, resist fashion and custom, eradicate prejudice, 
undertake the conquest of yourself, carry fire and sword 
into the most sensible part of your soul, enter the lists with 
your darling sin, “ mortify your members which are upon 
earth,”’ rise above flesh and blood, nature and self-love, and, 
to say all in one word, endeavor to ‘rule your spirit ;” and 
you will find that Solomon hath rigorously observed the 
laws of precision, that he hath spoken the language of logic, 
and not of oratory, and that there is not a shadow of 
hyperbole or exaggeration in this proposition, ‘‘He that 
ruleth his spirit, is better than he that taketh a city.” 

But to what period shall we refer the explication of the 
text? We will make meditation supply the place of expe- 
rience, and we will establish a truth, which the greatest 


CHRISTIAN HEROISM. 399 


part of you have not experienced, and which perhaps you 
never will experience. This is the design of this discourse. 
Our subject is true heroism, the real hero. 

Tenter into the matter. The word heroism is borrowed 
of the heathens. ‘They called those men heroes, whom a 
remainder of modesty and religion prevented their putting 
into the number of their gods, but who, for the glory of 
their exploits, were too great to be enrolled among mere 
men. Let us purify this idea: The man of whom Solomon 
speaks, “‘he who ruleth his spirit,’’ ought not to be con- 
founded with the rest of mankind; he is a man transformed 
by grace; one who, to use the language of Scripture, is a 
“‘ nartaker of the divine nature.” We are going to speak of 
this man, and we will first describe him, and next set forth 
his magnanimity; or, to keep to the text, we will first 
explain what it is to “rule the spirit,’ and, secondly, we 
will prove that “he that ruleth his spirit, is better than he 
that taketh a city.”” If we proceed further, it will only be 
to add a few reflections, tending to convince you that you 
are all called to heroism ; that there is no middle way in reli- 
gion; that you must of necessity either bear the shame and 
infamy of being mean and dastardly souls, or be crowned 
with the glory of heroes. 

I. Let us first explain the words of the text, ‘to rule 
the spirit.” Few words are more equivocal in the sacred 
language than this which our interpreters have rendered 
spirit. It is put in different places for the thoughts of the 
mind, the passions of the heart, the emotions of sense, 
phantoms of imagination, and illusions of concupiscence. 
We will not trouble you with grammatical dissertations. In 
our idiom, “to rule the spirit’ (and this is precisely the 
idea of Solomon), “to rule the spirit” is never to suffer 
one’s self to be prejudiced by false ideas; always to see 
things in their true point of view; to regulate our hatred 
and our love, our desires and our inactivity, exactly accord- 


400 JACQUES SAURIN. 


ing to the knowledge we have obtained after mature delibe- 
ration, that objects are worthy of our esteem, or deserye 
our aversion, that they are worth obtaining, or proper to be 
neglected. 

But as this manner of speaking, “to rule the spirit,” 
supposes exercise, pains, labors, and resistance, we ought 
not to confine ourselves to the general idea which we have 
given. We consider man in three points of light: in regard 
to his natural dispositions; in regard to the objects that 
surround him; and in regard to the habits which he hath 
contracted. | 

1. Consider the natural dispositions of man. Man, as 
soon as he is in the world, finds himself the slave of his 
heart, instead of being master of it. I mean, that instead 
of a natural facility to admit only what is true, and to love 
only what is amiable, he feels I know not what interior 
power, which indisposes him to truth and virtue, and con- 
ciliates him to vice and falsehood. 

Iam not going to agitate the famous question of free- 
will, nor to enter the lists with those who are noted in the 
church for the heresy of denying the doctrine of human 
depravity ; nor will I repeat all the arguments, good and 
bad, which are alleged against it. If there be a subject in 
which we ought to have no implicit faith, either in those 
who deny or in those who affirm; if there be a subject, in 
the discussion of which they who embrace the side of error 
advance truth, and they who embrace the side of truth 
advance falsehoods, this is certainly the subject. But we 
will not litigate this doctrine. We will allege here only one 
proof of our natural depravity that shall be taken from 
experience, and, for evidence of this fatal truth, we refer 
each of you to his own feelings. 

Is virtue to be practised? Who does not feel, as soon as 
he is capable of observing, an inward power of resistance ? 
By virtue here, I understand an universal disposition of an 


a 


CHRISTIAN HEROISM. 401 


intelligent soul to devote itself to order, and to regulate its 
conduct as order requires. Order demands that when I 
suffer, I should submit myself to the mighty hand of God 
which afflicts me. When I am in prosperity, order requires 
me to acknowledge the bounty of my benefactor. If I 
possess talents superior to those of my neighbor, order 
requires me to use them for the glory of him from whom I 
received them. If I am obliged to acknowledge that my 
neighbor hath a richer endowment than I, order requires 
me to acquiesce with submission, and to acknowledge with 
humility this difference of endowment; should I revolt with 
insolence, or dispute through jealousy or self-love, I should 
act disorderly. 

What I affirm of virtue, that it is a general disposition, 
that I affirm also in regard to an indisposition to sin. To 
avoid vice is to desist alike from everything contrary to 
order, from slander and anger, from indolence and voluptu- 
ousness, and so on. 

He who forms such ideas of the obligations of men, will 
have too many reasons to acknowledge, by his own inward 
feelings and experience, that we bring into the world with 
us propensities hostile and fatal to such obligations. Some 
of these are in the body; others in the mind. 

Some are in the body. Who is there that finds in his 
senses that suppleness and readiness of compliance with a 

volition, which is itself directed by laws of order? Who 
does not feel his constitution rebel against virtue? I am 
not speaking now of such men as brutally give themselves 
up to their senses, who consult no other laws than the revo- 
lutions of their own minds, and who, having abandoned for 
many years the government of their souls to the humors of 
their bodies, have lost all dominion over their senses. I 
speak of such as have the most sincere desire to hear and 
obey the laws of order. How often does a tender and 
charitable soul find in a body subject to violence and anger 

2c 


402 JACQUES SAURIN. 


obstacles against the exercise of its charity and tenderness ? 
How often does a soul, penetrated with respect for the laws 
of purity, find in a body rebellious against this virtue, 
terrible obstacles to which it is in a manner constrained to 
yield ? 

Disorder is not only in the body; the sow? is in the same 
condition. Consult yourselves in regard to such virtues and 
vices as are, so to speak, altogether spiritual, and have no 
relation, or a very distant one, to matter, and you will find 
you brought into the world an indisposition to some of these 
virtues, and an inclination to the opposite vices. For 
example, avarice is one of these spiritual vices, having only 
a very distant relation to matter. I do not mean that 
avarice does not incline us towards sensible objects, I only 
say that it is a passion less seated in the material than in 
the spiritual part of man; it rises rather out of reflections 
of the mind than out of motions of the body. Yet how 
many people are born sordid; people always inclined to 
amass money, and to whom the bare thought of giving, or 
parting with anything, gives pain; people who prove, by 
the very manner in which they exercise the laws of gene- 
rosity, that they are naturally inclined to violate them; 
people who never give except by constraint, who tear away, 
as it were, what they bestow on the necessities of the poor; 
and who never cut off those dear parts of themselves with- 
out taking the most affectionate leave of them! Envy and 
jealousy are dispositions of the kind which we call spiritual. 
They have their seat in the soul. There are many persons 
who acknowledge the injustice and baseness of these vices, 
and who hate them, and who nevertheless are not sufficient 
masters of themselves to prevent the dominion of them, at 
least to prevent a repetition of them, and not to find some- 
times their own misery in the prosperity of other persons. 

As we feel in our constitution obstacles to virtue and 
propensities to vice, so we perceive also inclinations to error 
and obstacles to truth. These things are closely connected ; 


CHRISTIAN HEROTSM. 403 


for if we find within us natural obstacles to virtue, we find 
for that very reason natural obstacles to truth; and if we 
be born with propensities to vice, we are born on that very 
account prone to error. Strictly speaking, all ideas of vice 
may be referred to one, that is to error. Every vice, every 
irregular passion, openly or tacitly, implies a falsehood. 
Every vice, every irregular passion includes this error, that 
a man who gratifies his passion is happier than he who 
restrains and moderates it. Now every man judging in this 
manner, whether he do so openly or covertly,.takes the side 
of error. If we be then naturally inclined to some vices 
we are naturally inclined to some errors, I mean, to admit 
that false principle on which the irregular passion establish- 
eth the vice it would commit, the desire of gratification. 
An impassionate man is not free to discern truth from false- 
hood, at least he cannot without extreme constraint discern 
the one from the other. He is inclined to fix his mind on 
whatever favors his passion, changes its nature, and dis- 
guises vice in the habit of virtue; and, to say all in one 
word, he is impelled to fix his mind on whatever makes truth 
appear false, and falsehood true. 

I conclude, the disposition of mind of which Solomon 
speaks, and which he describes by ruling the spirit, supposes 
labor, constraint, and exercise. A man who would acquire 
this noble disposition of mind, a man who would rule his 
spirit, must in some sort re-create himself; he finds himself 
at once, if I may be allowed to say so, at war with nature; 
his body must be formed anew; his humors and his spirits 
must be turned into another channel; violence must be 
done to all the powers of his soul. 

2. Having considered man in regard to his natural dis- 
positions, observe him secondly in regard to surrounding 
objects. Here you will obtain a second exposition of Solo- 
mon’s words, He that ruleth his spirit; you will have a 
second class of evidences of that exercise, labor, and con- 
straint, which true heroism supposes. Society is composed 


404 JACQUES SAURIN. 


of many enemies, who seem to be taking pains to Increase 
those difficulties which our natural dispositions oppose 
against truth and virtue. 

Examine the members of this society among whom we are 
appointed to live, consult their ideas, hear their conversa- 
tion, weigh their reasonings, and you will find almost every- 
where false judgments, errors, mistakes, and prejudices; 
prejudices of birth, taken from our parents, the nurses who 
suckled us, the people who made the habits in which we 
were wrapped in our cradles ; prejudices of education, taken 
from the masters to whom the care of our earlier days was 
committed, from some false ideas which they had imbibed in 
their youth, and from other illusions which they had created 
themselves ; prejudices of country, taken from the genius of 
the people among whom we have lived, and, so to speak, 
from the very air we have breathed; prejudices of religion, 
taken from our catechists, from the divines we have con- 
sulted, from the pastors by whom we have been directed, 
from the sect we haye embraced; prejudices of friendship, 
taken from the connections we have had, and the company 
we have kept; prejudices of trade and profession, taken ™ 
from the mechanical arts we have followed, or the abstract 
sciences we have studied; prejudices of fortune, taken from 
the condition of life in which we have been, either among 
the noble or the poor. This is only a small part of the 
channels by which error is conveyed to us. What efforts 
must a man make, what pains must he take with himself to 
preserve himself from contagion, to hold his soul perpetually 
in equilibrium, to keep all the gates of error shut, and 
incessantly to maintain, amidst so many prejudices, that 
freedom of judgment which weighs argument against objec- 
tion, objection against argument, which deliberately examines 
all that can be advanced in favor of a proposition, and all 
that can be said against it; which considers an object in 
every point of view, and which makes us determine only as 


CHRISTIAN HEROISM. 405 


we are constrained by the irresistible authority, and by the 
soft violence of truth, demonstration, and evidence! 

As the men who surround us fascinate us by their errors, 
so they decoy us into vice by their example. In all places 
and in all ages, virtue had fewer partisans than vice; in all 
ages and in all places, the friends of virtue were so few in 
comparison of the partisans of vice, that the saints com- 
plained, that the earth was not inhabited by men of the first 
kind, and that the whole world was occupied by the latter, 
the godly man ceaseth; “the faithful fail from among the 
children of men. The Lord looked down from heaven upon 
the children of men, to see if there were any that did under- 
stand, and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are 
altogether become filthy; there is none that doeth good, no 
not one.” (Psalm xii. 1, and xiv. 2, 8.) An exaggeration of 
the prophet, I grant, but an exaggeration for which the 
universality of human depravity hath given too much occa- 
sion. Cast your eyes attentively on society, you will be, as 
our prophet was, astonished at the great number of the 
partisans of vice; you will be troubled, as he was, to dis- 
tinguish in the crowd any friends of virtue; and you will 
find yourself inclined to say, as he said, “there is none that 
doeth good, no, not one.” 

But how difficult is it to resist example, and to rule the 
spirit among such a number of tyrants, who aim only to 
enslave it! In order to resist example, we must incessantly 
oppose those natural inclinations which urge us to imitation. 
To resist example, we must not suffer ourselves to be dazzled 
either with the number or the splendor of such as have 
placed vice on a throne. ‘To resist example, we must brave 
persecution, and all the inconveniences to which worldly 
people never fail to expose them who refuse to follow them 
down the precipice. To resist example, we must love virtue 
_ for virtue’s sake. To resist example, we must transport 
ourselves into another world, imagine ourselves among those 
holy societies who surround the throne of-a holy God, who 


406 JACQUES SAURIN, © 


make his excellencies the continual matter of their adora- 
tion and homage, and who fly at the first signal of his hand, 
the first breath of his mouth. What a work, what a difficult 
work for you, poor mortal, whose eyes are always turned 
toward the earth, and whom your own involuntary and 
insurmountable weight incessantly carries downward ! 

3. Finally, we must acknowledge what labor, pains, and 
resistance the disposition, of which Solomon speaks, requires, 
if we consider man in regard to the habits which he hath 
contracted. As soon as we enter into the world we find 
ourselves impelled by our natural propensities, stunned with 
the din of our passions, and, as I just now said, seduced by 
the errors, and carried away by the examples of our com- 
panions. Seldom in the first years of life do we surmount 
that natural bias and that power of example which impel us 
to falsehood and sin. Most men have done more acts of 
vice than of virtue; consequently, in the course of a certain 
number of years, we contribute by our way of living to join 
to the depravity of nature, that which comes from exercise 
and habit. A man who would rule his spirit is then required 
to eradicate the habits which have taken possession of him. 
What a task ! 

What a task, when we endeavor to prevent the return of 
ideas, which for many years our minds have revolved ! 
What a task, to defend one’s self from a passion which 
knows all the avenues of the mind, and how to facilitate 
access by means of the body! What a task, to turn away 
from the flattering images, and seducing solicitations of 
concupiscence long accustomed to gratification! What a 
task, when we are obliged to make the greatest efforts in 
the weakest part of life, and to subdue an enemy whom we 
have been always used to consider as unconquerable, and 
whom we never durst attack, when he had no other arms 
than what we chose to give him, and enjoyed no other 
advantages than such as we thought proper to allow! Such 
labor, such pains and constraint must he experience, who 


CHRISTIAN HEROISM. 407 


acquires the art of ruling his spirit! Now then, as we have 
explained this disposition of mind, let us assign the place 
which is due to him who hath it. Having given an idea of 
real heroism, we must display the grandeur of it, and prove 
the proposition in my text, ‘he that ruleth his spirit, is 
better than he that taketh a city.” 

II. For this purpose it is not necessary to observe that, 
by him that taketh a city, Solomon does not mean a man 
who, from principles of virtue, to defend his country and 
religion, hazards his life and liberty in a just war; in this 
view he that taketh a city and he that ruleth his spirit is 
one and the same man. Solomon intends conquerors who 
live, if 1 may express myself so, upon victories and con- 
quests; he intends heroes, such as the world considers 
them. 

Neither is it necessary precisely to fix the bounds of this 
general expression, 7s better. ‘‘ He that ruleth his spirit, is 
better than he that taketh a city.” The sense is easily 
understood; in general it signifies that he that ruleth his 
spirit discovers more fortitude, more magnanimity, and more 
courage; that he hath more just ideas of glory, and is more 
worthy of esteem and praise than they who are called in the 
world conquerors and heroes. 

We will prove this proposition by comparing the hero of 
the world with the Christian hero; and we will confine the 
comparison to four articles: First, the motives which ani- 
mate them; secondly, the exploits they perform ; thirdly, 
the enemies they attack; and lastly, the rewards they 
obtain. He that taketh a city is animated with motives 
mean and worldly, which degrade an intelligent soul, even 
while they seem to elevate it to a pinnacle of grandeur and 
glory; but he that ruleth his spirit is animated by motives 
grand, noble, and sublime, every way suited to the excel- 
lence of our nature. He that ruleth his spirit is capable of 
all the exploits of Aim that taketh a city; but he that taketh 
a city is not capable of the exploits of him that ruleth his 


408 JACQUES SAURIN. 


spirit. He that taketh a city, attacks an exterior enemy to 
whom he hath no attachment; but he that ruleth his spirit, 
attacks an enemy who is dear to him, and hath the great- 
ness of soul to turn his arms against himself. In fine, he 
that taketh a city is crowned only by idiots, who have no 
' just notions of grandeur and heroism; but he that ruleth his 
spirit will be crowned with the hands of the only just 
appraiser and dispenser of glory. These are four titles of 
superiority which the Christian hero hath over the false 
hero, four sources of proofs to establish the proposition in 
our text, “‘he that ruleth his spirit, is better than he that 
taketh a city.” 

1. Let us consider the motives which animate a conqueror 
that taketh a city, and the motives which animate a man 
that obtains rule over his spirit; the motives of the true 
hero with the motives of the false hero. What are the 
motives of a false hero? What spirit animates him when 
he undertakes to conquer a city? This is one of the ques- 
tions which sinful passions have most obscured. ‘Truth is 
disguised in epistles dedicatory, and in profane eulogiums, 
yea, sometimes in religious discourses. The majesty of a 
victorious general, the glory of a conqueror, the pompous 
titles of victor, arbiter of peace, arbiter of war, have so 
dazzled us, and in some sort so perverted the powers of our 
soul that we cannot form just notions of this subject. Hear 
pure nature, formerly speaking by the mouth of a nation, 
who were the more wise for not being civilized by the injus- 
tice of our laws and customs. I speak of the ancient 
Scythians. The most famous taker of cities came to their — 
cabins and caverns. He had already subdued his fellow- 
citizens and neighbors. Already Thebes and Athens, Thrace 
and Thessaly, had submitted to his arms. Already, Greece 
being too small a sphere of action for him, he had penetrated 
even into Persia, passed the famous Phrygian river, where 
he slew six hundred thousand men, reduced Caria and 
Judea, made war with Darius and conquered him, performed 


‘ 


CHRISTIAN HEROISM. 409 


exploits more than human, and, in spite of nature, besieged 
and took Tyre, the most famous siege recorded in ancient 
history, subjugated the Mardi and Bactrians, attained the 
mountains Caucasus and Oxus, and, in a word, conquered 
more countries and enslaved more people than we can 
describe, or even mention within the limits allotted to this 
exercise. This man arrives in Scythia. The Scythians sent 
deputies to him, who thus addressed him: ‘ Had the gods 
given you a body proportioned to your ambition, the whole 
universe would have been too little for you: with one hand 
you would have touched the east, and with the other the west, 
and not content with this, you would have followed the sun, 
and have seen where he hides himself. Whatever you are, 
you are aspiring at what you can never obtain. From 
Kurope you run into Asia, and from Asia back you run 
again into Europe; and having enslaved all mankind, you 
attack rivers, and forests, and wild beasts. What have you 
to do with us? We have never set foot in your country. 
May not a people living in a desert be allowed to be igno- 
rant of who you are and whence you come? You boast of 
having exterminated robbers, and you yourself are the 
greatest robber in the world. You have pillaged and plun- 
dered all nations, and now you come to rob us of our cattle. 
It is in vain to fill your hands, for you are always in search 
of fresh prey. Of what use are your boundless riches, 
except to irritate your eternal thirst? You are the first 
man who ever experienced such extreme want in the midst 
of such abundance. All you have serves only to make you 
desire with more fury what you have not. If you be a god, 
do good to mankind; but if you be only an insignificant 
mortal, think of what you are, and remember that it is a 
great folly to occupy things which make us forget ourselves.” 
These are the motives which animate the heroes of the world; 
these are the sentiments which are disguised under the fine 
names of glory, valor, greatness of soul, heroism. An 
insatiable avidity of riches, an invincible pride, a boundless 


410 JACQUES SAURIN. 


ambition, a total forgetfulness of what is, what ought to be, 
and what must be hereafter. 

‘The motives of him who endeavors to render himself 
master of his own. heart, are love of order, desire of free- 
dom from the slavery of the passions, a noble firmness of 
soul, which admits only what appears true, and loves only 
what appears lovely, after sober and serious discussion. In 
this first view, then, the advantage is wholly in favor of him 
that ruleth his spirit. ‘‘ He that ruleth his spirit, is better 
than he that taketh a city.” 

2. Compare, in the second place, the exploits of him that 
ruleth his spirit, with the exploits of him that taketh a city. 
He who is capable of ruling his spirit, is capable of all that 
is great and noble in him that taketh a city: but he that~ 
taketh a city is not capable of all that is great and magnani- 
mous in him that ruleth his spirit. I will explain myself. 

What is there great and magnanimous in a hero that 
taketh a city? Patience to endure fatigue, to surmount 
difficulties, to suffer contradiction; intrepidity in the most 
frightful dangers; presence of mind in the most violent and 
painful exercises; unshaken firmness in sight of a near and 
terrible dissolution. These are dispositions of mind, I grant, 
which seem to elevate man above humanity ; but a Christian 
hero is capable of all this, I speak sincerely and without a 
figure. A man who hath obtained a religious freedom of 
mind, who always preserves this liberty, who always weighs 
good and evil, who believes only what is true, and does only 
what is right; who hath always his eye upon his duty, or as 
the psalmist expresseth it, who “sets the Lord always before 
him,” such a man is capable, literally capable, of all you 
admire in a worldly hero. No difficulty discourages him, no 
contradiction disconcerts him, no fatigue stops him, no 
dangers affright him, no pain but he can bear, no appear- 
ance of death shocks him into paleness, and fear, and flight. 
Our women and children, our confessors and martyrs, have 
literally performed greater exploits of fortitude, patience, 


CHRISTIAN HEROISNM. 411 


courage, and constancy, in convents, prisons, and dungeons, 
at stakes and on scaffolds, than Alexanders and Cesars in 
all their lives. And where is the hero of this world who 
hath performed so many actions of courage and magna- 
nimity, in sieges and battles, as our confessors have for 
thirty years on board the galleys? ‘The former were sup- 
ported by the presence of thousands of witnesses; the latter 
had no spectators but God and their own consciences. The 
Christian hero is capable then of all that is great in the 
hero of the world. But the worldly hero is incapable of 
performing such exploits as the Christian hero performs; 
and he knows perfectly that his heroism doth not conduct 
him so far in the path of glory. Try the strength of a 
worldly hero. Set him to contend with a passion. You 
will soon find this man, invincible before, subdued into 
slavery and shame. He who was firm and fearless in sight 
of fire and flame, at the sound of warlike instruments, 
becomes feeble, mean, and enervated by a seducing and 
enchanting object. Samson defeats the Philistines; but 
Delilah subdues Samson. Samson carries away the gates 
of Gaza; but Samson sinks under the weight of his own 
sensuality. Hercules seeks highway robbers to combat, and 
monsters to subdue; but he cannot resist impurity. We 
find him on monuments of antiquity carrying an infant on 
his shoulders, an emblem of voluptuousness, stooping under 
that unworthy burden, and letting his club fall from his 
hand. There is therefore no declamation, no hyperbole in 
our proposition ; the Christian hero is capable of performing 
all the great actions performed by the hero of the world; 
but the hero of the world is incapable of performing such 
noble actions as the Christian hero performs; and in this 
respect, “‘he that ruleth his spirit, is better than he that 
taketh a city.” 

3. Compare him that taketh a city, with him that ruleth 
his spirit, in regard to the enemies whom they attack, and 


412 JACQUES SAURIN. 


you will find in the latter a third title of superiority over 
the former. He that taketh a city, attacks an exterior 
enemy, who is a stranger and often odious to him. The 
ambition that fills his soul leaves no room for compassion 
and pity; and, provided he can but obtain his end, no 
matter to him though the way be strewed with the dying 
and the dead: to obtain that he travels over mountains of 
heads, and arms, and carcasses. The tumultuous passions 
which tyrannize over him stifle the voice of nature, and 
deafen him to the cries of a thousand miserable wretches 
sacrificed to his fame. 

The enemy whom the Christian combats is his own heart: 
for he is required to turn his arms against himself. He 
must suspend all sentiments of self-love; he must become 
his own executioner, and, to use the ideas and expressions 
of Jesus Christ, he must actually deny himself. 

Jesus Christ well knew mankind. He did not preach like 
some preaching novices who, in order to incline their hearers 
to subdue their passions, propose the work to them as free 
from difficulty. Jesus Christ did not disguise the difficulties 
which the man must undergo who puts on the spirit of 
Christianity ; and I do not know whether we meet with any 
expression in the writings of pagan poets or philosophers 
more natural, and at the same time more emphatical than 
this: “If any man will come after me, let him deny him- 
self.”” Matt. xvi. 24. 

Not that this is literally practicable, not that man can put 
off himself, not that religion requires us to sacrifice to it 
what makes the essence and happiness of our nature; on 
the contrary, strictly speaking, it is sin which makes us put 
off or deny what is great and noble in our essence ; it is sin 
which requires us to sacrifice our true happiness to it. If 
Jesus Christ expresses himself in this manner, it is because 
when man is possessed with a passion, it is incorporated, as 
it were, with himself; it seems to him essential to his 


CHRISTIAN HEROISM. 413 


felicity ; everything troubles, and everything puts him on 
the rack when he cannot gratify it; without gratifying his 
passion, his food hath no taste, flowers no smell, pleasures 
no point, the sun is dark, society disagreeable, life itself 
hath no charms. To attack a reigning passion is to deny 
self ; and here is the patience.of the saints ; this is the enemy 
whom the Christian attacks; this is the war which he 
wageth. How tremulous and weak is the hand when it 
toucheth a sword to be plunged into one’s own bosom! Love 
of order, truth, and virtue support a Christian hero in this 
almost desperate undertaking. 

4, In fine, Compare him that ruleth his spirit, with him 
that taketh a city, in regard to the acclamations with which 
they are accompanied, and the crowns prepared for them. 
Who are the authors of those acclamations with which the 
air resounds the praise of worldly heroes? They are court- 
iers, poets, panegyrists. But what! are people of this order 
the only persons who entertain just notions of glory? and 
if they be, are they generous enough to speak out? How 
can a soul wholly devoted to the will and caprice of a con- 
queror ; how can a venal creature who makes a market of | 
-eulogiums and praises which he sells to the highest bidder ; 
how can a brutal soldiery determine what is worthy of praise 
or blame? Is it for such people to distribute prizes of 
glory, and to assign heroes their rank?. To be exalted by 
people of this sort is a shame; to be crowned by their hands 
an infamy. 

Elevate, elevate thy meditation, Christian soul, rise into 
the Majesty of the Great Supreme. Think of that sublime 
intelligence, who unites in his essence everything noble and 
sublime. Contemplate God, surrounded with angels and 
archangels, cherubim and seraphim. Hear the concerts 
which happy spirits perform to his glory. Hear them, 
penetrated, ravished, charmed with the divine beauties, 
erying night arid day, ‘“ Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of 


414 JACQUES SAURIN. 


Hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory. Blessing and 
glory, wisdom and thanksgiving, honor, and power, and 
might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Great and mar- 
vellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true 
are thy ways} thou King of saints. Who shall not fear 
thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name?’ This Being so 
perfect, this Being so worthily praised, this Being so worthy 
of everlasting praise, this is he who will pronounce upon 
true glory; this is he who will compose the eulogium of all 
who aspire at it; this is he who will one day praise in the 
face of heaven and earth all those who shall have made the 
noble conquests which we have been describing. 

Imagination sinks under the weight of this subject, and 
this object is too bright for eyes like ours; but the nature 
of things doth not depend on our faculty of seeing them. 
As God calls us to combats more than human, so he sees fit 
to support us by a prospect of more than human rewards. 
Yes, it is the Supreme Being, it is he who will one day dis- 
tribute the praises which are due to such as have triumphed 
over themselves. What a spectacle! what a prospect! Yes, 
Christian champion, after thou hast resisted flesh and blood, 
after thou hast been treated as a fool by mankind, after 
thou hast run the race of tribulation, after thou hast made 
thy life one perpetual martyrdom, thou shalt be called forth 
in the presence of men and angels; the master of the world 
shall separate thee from the crowd ; there he will address to 
thee this language, Well done, good and faithful servant ; 
there he will accomplish the promise which he this day 
makes to all who fight under his standard, He that overcometh 
shall sit down in my throne. Ah! glory of worldly heroes, 
profane encomiums, fastidious inscriptions, proud trophies, 
brilliant but corruptible diadems ! what are you in comparison 
with the acclamations which await the Christian hero, and 
the crowns which God the rewarder prepares for him ? 

And you, mean and timid souls, who perhaps admire these 





CHRISTIAN HEROISM. , 415 


triumphs, but who have not the ambition to strive to obtain 
them ; you soft and indolent spirits who, without reluctance, 
give up all pretensions to the immortal crowns which God 
prepares for heroism, provided he require no account of 
your indolence and effeminacy, and suffer you, like brute 
beasts, to follow the first. instincts of your nature—unde- 
ceive yourselves. I said, at the beginning, you are all 
called to heroism; there is no midway in religion; you must 
be covered with shame and infamy, along with the base and 
timid, or crowned with glory in company with heroes. The 
duty of an intelligent soul is to adhere to truth, and to 
follow virtue ; we bring into the world with us obstacles to 
both; our duty is to surmount them ; without this we betray 
our trust; we do not answer the end of our creation ; we are 
guilty, and we shall be punished for not endeavoring to 
obtain the great end for which we were created. .... 

Let us religiously abide by our principle. The duty of 
an intelligent soul is to adhere to truth and to practise 
virtue. We are born with a disinclination to both. Our 
duty is to get rid of this; and without doing so we neglect the 
obligation of an intelligent soul; we do not answer the end 
for which we were intended; we are guilty, and we shall be 
punished for not having answered the end of our creation. 

Let us consider ourselves as soldiers placed around a 
besieged city, and having such or such an enemy to fight, 
- guch or such a post to force. You, you are naturally subject 
to violence and anger. It is sad to find, in one’s own con- 
stitution, an opposition to virtues so lovely as those of 
submission, charity, sweetness, and patience. Groan under 
this evil, but do not despair; when you are judged, less 
attention will be paid to your natural indisposition to these 
virtues than to the efforts which you made to get rid of it. 
To this point direct all your attention, all your strength, 
and all your courage. Say to yourself, this is the post 
which my general intends I should force; this is the enemy 


416 JACQUES SAURIN. 


I am to fight with. And be you fully convinced that one 
of the principal views which God hath in preserving your 
life, is, that you should render yourself master of this 
passion. You, you are naturally disposed to be proud. 
The moment you leave your mind to its natural bias, it 
turns to such objects as seem the most fit to give you high 
ideas of yourself, to your penetration, your memory, your 
imagination, and even to exterior advantages, which vanity 
generally incorporates with the person who enjoys them. It 
is melancholy to find within yourself any seeds of an inclina- 
tion, which so ill agree with creatures vile and miserable as 
men. Lament this misfortune, but do not despair; to this 
side turn all your attention and all your courage and 
strength. Say to yourself, this is the post which my general 
would have me force; this is the enemy whom he hath 
appointed me to oppose. And be fully convinced that one 
of the principal views of God in continuing you in this 
world is, that you may resist this passion and make yourself 
master of it. 

Let us, all together, my brethren, endeavor to rule our 
own spirits. Let us not be dismayed at the greatness of the 
work, because greater is he that is in us, than he that is in 
the world. Grace comes to the aid of nature. Prayer 
acquires strength by exercise. The passions, after having 
been tyrants, become slaves in their turn. The danger and 
pain of battle vanish when the eye gets sight of conquest. 
How inconceivably beautiful is victory then! God grant 
we may obtain it! ‘To him be honor and glory for ever. 
Amen. 


eV 
ETERNAL REDEMPTION. 


PHILIP. 

[Rozert Purttp, the distinguished dissenting minister of Maberly 
Chapel, London, died in 1858, aged sixty-seven years. In this coun- 
try he is best known by his “ Devotional Guides.’ This spiritual 
work deserves to be, and bids fair to become, a standard in Christian 
literature, worthy to be named with Thomas 4 Kempis’ “ Imitation 
of Christ.” It comprises: Christian Experience, for the Perplexed ; 
Communion with God, for the Devotional; Eternity Realized, for the 
Thoughtful; The God of Glory, for the Doubting; Pleasing God, for 
the Conscientious ; and Redemption, the New Song in Heaven. Its 
thoughts are soul-searching, and its language transparent. | 


** It became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, 
in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salva- 
tion perfect through sufferings.” —Heb. ii. 10. 


THERE is, perhaps, nothing we understand better, in the 
conduct of others, than what is becoming or unbecoming in 
their spirit and deportment. We are almost eagle-eyed to 
discover, and eagled-winged to catch, whatever is worthy or 
unworthy of a man’s rank and character. And, in general, 
we are not far wrong, in these prompt and summary deci- 
sions on what is becoming and consistent. 

This almost instinctive sense of propriety in human con- 
duct might, if wisely employed, enable us to judge wisely 
of what is becoming in the Divine conduct. For, if we 
expect wise, good, and great men to act up to their character 
and avowed principles, we may well expect that the infinitely 
wise, great, and good God will do nothing unbecoming his 
character and supremacy. When, therefore, He says that: 
it ‘became’ him to save sinners, only by the blood of the 
Lamb, it surely becomes us to search in his character and 
salvation, not for reasons why redemption could not, or 


should not, be by atonement; but for reasons why it is so. 
14 2d (417) 


418 ROBERT PHILIP. 


Now, upon the very surface of the case, it is self-evident 
that an infinitely wise God would neither do too much nor 
too little for the salvation of man. Less than enough would 
not become his love; more than enough would not become 
his wisdom. 

It is, however, said by some, and suspected by more, that 
an atonement for sin is unnecessary, and, therefore, untrue ; 
that it would be unjust to lay the punishment of the guilty 
on the head of the innocent; and, therefore, that Christ did 
not suffer nor die for others. 

This reasoning is as ruinous to its own object as it is 
fallacious in itself. For Christ did suffer and die in agony, 
and in ignominy: and if not for others, then, for what? 
Hither Christ’s innocence, or God’s justice, must be* im- 
peached and given up, if the death of the cross was not a 
sacrifice for sin. Those, therefore, who allow that Christ 
himself was sinless, and that he suffered, cannot prove that 
God is just: for to inflict, or allow the infliction of suffering 
and death on a being perfectly innocent, is flagrant injustice. 

The other objections against the atonement may all be as 
triumphantly answered; and that by a process of reasoning 
neither abstract nor abstruse. They have only to be 
brought fully under the light of eternal glory, as that is 
revealed in the Bible, in order to be annihilated: for false 
or superficial views of heaven lie at the foundation of them 
all. 

I. Bringing many sons to glory is God’s chief and final 
object, in all the mercy and grace which he exercises towards 
man. 

Now glory, as a place, is the heaven where God himself 
dwells and reigns, visibly and eternally. It is his own 
special temple, resplendent with his presence, and vocal 
with his worship. It is his own central throne, from which 
he surveys and rules the universe. 

Again, glory, as a state of character, is likeness to the 
God of heaven;—it is to bear the image of his spotless 


ETERNAL REDEMPTION. 419 


holiness, and to breathe the spirit of his perfect love. This 
is the glory to which God proposes to bring many sons. 
Now this heaven is so unlike our earth,—where God is 
altogether invisible, and man so unholy and unloving,— 
that, to say the least, a very great change for the better 
must take place in men, before they can be fit for such 
glory. There are some things in this heaven which are not 
very agreeable to the natural mind of man; such as uni- 
versal and everlasting spirituality and harmony. And then 
there are in it none of the things which man likes most; 
such as sensual gratifications and secular honors. Such 
being the sober facts of the case (and they are solemn and 
obvious facts), it surely “becomes” God to take care, that 
this heaven, which is to be his own eternal temple and 
throne, shall not be disgraced nor disturbed by the presence 
of unholy or alienated inhabitants. Were it only for the 
sake of the innumerable company of angels which are in it, 
it becomes him “ for’? whom all angels are obedient and 
harmonious, and “‘ by’? whom they are all perfectly happy, 
to take care that neither their bliss nor their holiness should 
ever be spoiled by improper company. For, it would be 
very unbecoming to mix up with such a hierarchy of pure 
and united spirits, any number of passionate or impure 
beings. And as “‘many sons” are to be brought from our 
earth to this heaven, there is the more need to guard against 
the introduction of unsanctified sons. Well, all this danger 
is effectually provided against. Nothing that defileth or 
divideth shall ever enter the gates of glory. All who shall 
inherit heaven, will be made ‘‘ meet for the inheritance of 
the saints in light.”” Corruption shall put on incorruption, 
and mortality put on immortality, to put them off no more 
for ever. Sin will be as impossible for ever as suffering ; 
and disagreement as unknown as death. All the exceeding 
weight of glory will be “an eternal weight of glory.” So 
far this is an arrangement which, it will be allowed, is highly 
becoming the high character of God, and of heaven too. 


420 ROBERT PHILIP. 


This will be a state of things in full harmony with all that 
we know, or can imagine, of the personal glory and felicity 
of the Godhead. May we not, therefore, expect that as the 
grand end of his mercy and grace is so worthy of all his 
perfections, that all the means of bringing many sons to 
this glory will be equally worthy and becoming? God is as 
unlikely to let down his character by the plan of salvation, 
as by the result of it. His way of saving is, therefore, as 
sure to be what becomes himself, as heaven is so. 

II. The sufferings of Christ are declared to be the way 
in which it became God to bring man to glory. 

This, however, is denied by many, and doubted by more. 


Other ways are said to be far more becoming the character’ 


of God. An atonement is said to be unworthy of his good- 
ness to ask, and of his justice to accept. Accordingly, it 
is held and upheld by not a few, that the most becoming 
way of saving sinners is, graciously to forgive and forget 
all their sins, without any satisfaction to law or justice, but 
repentance. Let us examine this matter, said to be so 
becoming ! 

How does it become Him, who is the author and end of 
all things, to pardon all sin, and any sin, on the repentance 
and reformation of the sinner, alone? It is allowed by the 
enemies of the atonement, that it becomes God to require 
repentance and amendment, in order to pardon. Well, this 
must of course be because God hates sin, and because sin is 
an evil which ought to be repented of and given up, and 
because an impenitent and unholy heart will not suit heaven. 
But, unless it can be proved that pardon, thus obtained by 
repentance, would prevent for ever all sin in heaven, it can- 
not ‘‘become’’ God to pardon, on such conditions, if He 
intend to maintain eternal glory. For, were pardon thus 
cheap, where would be the check against the recurrence of 
sin in heaven? Who would fear much to renew sinful 
experiments on high, if the matter were thus easily settled 
below? Remember, it is essential to the eternity of heaven, 


oe 


ETERNAL REDEMPTION. 421 


that sin be eternally impossible to all the “many sons” 
brought to glory. But on this plan, sin would be for ever 
both possible and practicable, because so easily remedied. 
In fact, were this doctrine of repentance true, it would be 
an eternal temptation to sin. 

But, it is thought that being in heaven will be enough to 
prevent all sin for ever. ‘‘ Forever,” is a word easily 
uttered, but it is a duration unutterable. However, what- 
ever heaven may be, that it always was; and we know that 
being in it did not prevent some angels from becoming 
devils. This, therefore, is no eternal antidote against sin- 
ning and. falling again. ‘ But, if we were made, like 
heaven, perfectly pure and wise, would not that be an 
eternal security?’ Now, I readily grant that it ought to 
be so. I must, however, remind you that, at their creation, 
the now fallen angels were as full and effulgent with holiness 
and wisdom as God could make them; and yet they rebelled 
and fell. A plain proof that no degree of “the image of 
the Heavenly’ could prevent, by its own power alone, the 
return of any son in glory to “‘the image of the earthly,” 
if he were brought to heaven by mere repentance, however 
that repentance issued in perfect holiness. The perfect 
holiness would be for ever in jeopardy by the cheapness 
and easiness of a penitential pardon. ‘ But, would not all 
tendency to fall wear itself out by degrees, until every one 
was so tired of trying rash experiments, that all would give 
them up for ever, and thus the evil cure itself?’ I answer 
—evil has never cured itself in this way, but waxed worse 
and worse. But even if it could eventually become its own 
antidote, how would it ‘“‘ become’ God to wait until all had 
worn themselves weary of trying rash and wrong experi- 
ments? ‘But, why not then confirm for ever the holy 
principles and inclinations of all as they enter heaven, and 
thus prevent the possibility of sin?’ Confirm them! why, 
the plan of saving by mere mercy, on mere repentance, 
leaves nothing to confirm them with, but that kind of power 


422 ROBERT PHILIP. 


which keeps the mountains steady, and the stars regular; 
and such physical power God does not apply to mind, but to 
dead matter. It would not become Him by whom all minds — 
were made rational, and for whom all minds should be 
religious, to confirm them in holiness by force. Mind can 
only be made or kept virtuous by the power of virtuous 
motives. Unless, therefore, salvation by repentance alone 
has power in itself to confirm perfection, it should be dis- 
carded at once, as untenable and untrue. Now, we have 
seen that it has not absolute power to do so. The atone- 
ment of Emmanuel has, alone, the power of moral confirma- 
tion. The evil of sin, seen in his humiliation, seen in his 
sufferings, seen in his blood, will be an eternal antidote to 
all sin in heaven. None of all the many sons in glory will 
ever think of sinning, when they see him in the midst of 
the throne as a lamb that has been slain. The sight of 
Christ, and the idea of future sin, will never blend in any 
conscience sprinkled with the blood of Christ. He will be 
High-Priest for ever in heaven, and, therefore, his crucified 
presence will be as effectual to prevent all future sin, as his 
death was to atone for past sin. 

Thus, whilst the plan of salvation by the atonement 
secures repentance of the best kind, it secures also, by 
moral and immortal means, the eternal holiness of the truly 
penitent. How, then, could it ‘become’? God to bring 
many sons to glory, in a way that gives no certainty for 
keeping them in glory? Would this be worthy of any of 
his perfections? If not, then it became Him, as he intended 
to keep them in heaven, to bring them all to it by a way 
that was sure to keep them for ever sinless: that is, by the 
‘“‘new and living way opened up through the rent veil’ of 
the Saviour’s humanity. Is it necessary to prove that this 
. mediatorial method of saving can and must prevent for ever 
the possibility of sinning or falling again in heaven? If 
so, the proof is at hand, in the single fact that the atone- 
ment will never be repeated. Now, as the death of Christ 


ETERNAL REDEMPTION. 423 


is the only thing that could atone for sin, and as He will 
die no more, it will be known and felt through all the uni- 
verse of God, that another rebellion would be eternally 
fatal. This is a point which never can become doubtful or 
dim in heaven. For as it was impossible for man or angel 
to conceive that ever the Son of God would die once to 
save, so it must be for ever impossible to imagine that he will 
die again; and thus for ever impossible for saints or angels 
to be tempted again to.sin, by the hope of pardon or im- 
punity. Words, principles, warnings, might be misunder- 
stood and misinterpreted, and thus be got over; but the one 
atonement of Emmanuel is a transaction so peculiar and 
impressive, that it must for ever prevent all mistakes and 
all presumption. Spdbe: 

“‘ But, sinning in heaven !’’ it may be said, ‘‘no one ever 
dreams of such a thing. What, then, is the use of spending 
so much time and strength on a point which people never 

* think about? Would it not be wiser to expend this labor on 
the prevention of sin on earth?’ Well, the only thing 
which can effectually prevent it on earth is that which alone 
can eternally prevent it in heaven—the influence of the 
cross of Christ; andif that be needed there, to keep saints. 
and angels in their place and character, surely it is wanted 
here, where inclination and temptation to sin are so strong! 

I am not, therefore, beating the air, nor fighting shadows, 
in this argument; but climbing to the highest point in 
eternal glory, that I may throw myself down with irresisti- 
ble force upon your consciences, by the fact, that there is 
only one remedy for sin-—only one effectual preventive of 
sin, in the universe of God. Heaven cannot be kept heaven, 
without the cross in the midst of the throne. How then 
can you be cured or kept from sin, without glorying in that 
cross? The love of Christ has not that constraining influ- 
ence amongst us which it ought, and might have. How else 
could so many, who profess to depend on him for salvation, 
keep back from the sacrament of his death? Oh, consider, 


424 ROBERT PHILIP. 


ye who forget his dying command: how can it be safe to 
neglect this commemoration on earth, seeing it would be 
unsafe in heaven for any patriarch, prophet, apostle, or 
martyr, to neglect the marriage supper of the Lamb? I 
tell you now, and will prove it anon, that there is not an 
angel in heaven would be safe to cease from joining in the 
new song; for they, too, are all kept in their proper place 
and spirit by looking into the sufferings of Christ; and but 
for the confirming influence of his cross on them, they would 
all have no more security against falling, than Satan and 
his angels had in their first estate. 

Neglecter of the sacrament, weigh this solemn fact. Con- 
sider this, ye who think little about your need of an interest 
in the blood of the Lamb. All heaven upbraids you both; 
all saints and angels in glory combine to reprove your guilt 
and folly in trifling with that blood, which is the only unal- 
terable seal of their safety. How then can you be safe from 
sin or hell, seeing such conduct as yours would unseat, and 
uncrown, and ruin, any spirit before the throne? 

Brethren! I have not been beating the air this morning, 
but preparing to deal deadly blows against all hopes of 
salvation which are not entirely founded upon the cross of 
Christ. Some argue for another way of salvation; and 
more: take for granted, that if they only repent and reform 
at last, there is no great danger of missing heaven. Now, 
were all this as true as it is false, still, a heaven got in this 
way could not be kept, to a certainty. There would be, in 
spite of all its glories, eternal danger of losing it again ; 
because there is not moral force, either in repentance or per- 
fection, to prevent sin. Human perfection failed in para- 
dise; angelic perfection failed in the heaven of heavens. 
He must, therefore, be a dupe or a driveller, who, in the 
face of such facts, could flatter himself that he could do 
better to all eternity. No, no, brethren; if we wish for an 
eternal heaven, we must seek it as the purchase of the 
Saviour’s blood: for it is proved by fatal experience, that 


ETERNAL REDEMPTION. 425 


finite beings, however happy or pure, are for ever capable 
both of erring and falling, when left to their own power. 
God has, therefore, determined to put a final stop to all 
defection in all unfallen worlds; and as it would not become 
the Father of spirits to confirm spirits by force, he so loved 
them as to confirm them by the death of his Son. He saw 
that his blood would secure and seal the eternal safety of all 
the fallen men who trusted in it, and of all the unfallen 
angels and worlds who adore it; and he withheld not, he 
grudged not, he hesitated not, to make Him the Redeemer 
of man, and the ratifier of angels. It was the utmost that 
infinite love and power could do ; and God did it as willingly 
as he created light. 

III. It is declared that, in saving man by the sufferings 
of Christ, God had a regard to the relation in which all 
things in the universe stood to himself. 

What he did in making Christ a sacrifice for our sins, was 
what “became” him to do as the author and end of all 
things visible and invisible. Now, 

1. It certainly became God to save man in a way that 
should not endanger the safety of angels. 

But this could not have been done by a penitential salva- 
tion. That would have been to tell all the unfallen universe, 
that tears would repair any injury they might ever do to the 
honor of God, or their own interests. A fine lesson, in a 
universe where even innocence is no safeguard from tempta- 
tion! ‘They must have very low ideas of God, indeed, who 
can imagine that it would become him to pardon sin on mere 
repentance. Were this the fact as to the way of pardon, 
the probability would inevitably be, that God would have to 
go on pardoning to all eternity. In like manner, a legal 
salvation would have tended to relax the obedience of angels. 
For, if man had got to heaven by an imperfect obedience, 
why might not angels expect to keep heaven by an imperfect 
one? And if a return to duty be enough for man, why 
should it not be enough for angels? Thus salvation by 


426 ROBERT PHILIP. 


od 


works would just throw loose the whole universe to try 
whatever experiments they liked: because, on that principle, 
they would only have to return to their duty, in order to set 
all right again. 

It surely requires but little discernment to see and feel, 
that such a plan of pardoning would ill become Him, for 
whom are all things, and by whom are all things. 

2. It certainly became God to save man in a way which 
should not impeach his character for not saving fallen angels. 

They had been hurled at once from thrones of light, into 
chains of eternal darkness, and no unfallen spirit in the 
universe doubted, at the awful moment of this Judgment, its 
perfect justice; but all, as they looked on the dark and 
deserted orbits of these lost morning stars, felt that God 
had done what “became” his holiness and supremacy. 
But, could they have felt thus, if the next race of sinners 
had been pardoned on mere repentance? ‘Two such differ- 
ent modes of treating sin could not have been thought 
equally well of. If the first was not too severe, the second 
was too lenient: for both could not become the same God. 
Angels must, therefore, have hated the one if they loved 
the other. For, look at the facts of the case: a river of 
life flowing down to our world from the very throne of God; 
and a river of wrath flowing down to hell from the same 
throne. This admits of only one explanation, viz. that the 
blood of Christ flowed for fallen man, and not for fallen 
angels. On no other principle can we account for, or har- 
monize with the character of God, the freeness of the sal- 
vation offered to us.. Eternal happiness offered to one race 
of sinners, and eternal misery inflicted on another race of 
sinners, would be an eternal anomaly in the moral govern- 
ment of God, but for the atonement made by Christ in our 
behalf. But now, no holy nor wise being can wonder that 
grace reigns by the blood of the Lamb of God. They may 
and will eternally wonder that he shed his blood for us; but 
they cannot wonder that it made salvation sure or free. 


ETERNAL REDEMPTION. 427 


Nor can they wonder that Satan and his angels are not 
redeemed, seeing it was by opposing this scheme of redemp- 
tion they sinned and fell. “Satan,” says Christ, “abode 
not in The Truth;’’ and therefore, the Saviour took not on 
him the nature of angels, but the nature of man. 

3. It became God to redeem man, and confirm angels, in 
such a way as to leave no possibility of imagining that any 
higher happiness could be found out, than the voluntary 
gift of God conferred. 

The rock on which finite beings would (but for the atone- 
ment) be always in danger of splitting, is, the idea that 
more might be known than is told them, and more enjoyed 
than is given them. Man and angels split upon this rock. 
Nor does it seem possible to keep out this rock from the 
ocean of glory itself, but by placing the Rock of Ages in 
it. Neither words nor warnings seem enough to produce 
an eternal and universal persuasion, that there is nothing 
better beyond what God allows. Indeed the more a finite 
being has of rank or bliss, the more he is in danger of being 
tempted to suspect that he could get higher on the scale. 
They have never studied mental power, who do not under- 
stand this fact: and hence, all the mist and dust thrown. 
around the origin of evil. Curiosity is its real origin. - 

One grand object of redemption was, therefore, to throw 
open all that can be known or enjoyed. And this the atone- 
ment of Christ does fully and freely. It is sensible and 
decisive proof to the universe, that he who spared not his 
own Son, but gave him up to save man and seal angels, will, 
with him, freely give “all things.’ Thus his unspeakable 
gift being the very uttermost length that Infinity could go to, 
it must be eternally seen and felt that there is nothing beyond: 
for this throws open the whole character of God, and the 
whole range of possibility ; and thus will put an end for ever 
to all doubts and experiments. 

4. It became God to redeem man, and to confirm angels, 


428 ROBERT PHILIP. 


in such a way as to render the impartiality of his love to. 
both for ever unquestionable. te, 

Accordingly, it is as sons that he will bring men to glory— 
the very rank which all the unfallen spirits in all worlds hold. 
The redeemed, therefore, can never be jealous of angels, 
nor angels of them. Neither cherubim nor seraphim can be 
slow to welcome, nor ashamed to love, those whom Christ 
loved and washed from their sins in his own blood. ‘This is 
a distinction which no angelic rank can ever eclipse, or lessen. 
Our nature, united to Godhead in the person of Christ, and 
perfected in ourselves, will, at least, equal all angelic nature 
in power and purity ; and thus secure an equal place before 
the throne. 

In like manner it will be for ever impossible for redeemed 
men to envy confirmed angels: because on both the image 
of God will be equally bright; the smile of God equally 
sweet; communion with God equally intimate; the myste- 
ries of God equally open; the glories of God equally fami- 
liar; and all the range of heavenly enjoyment equally free. 
This will be a universe of harmony and happiness! Yes; 
and the cross of Christ will be the central pillar on which 
all its eternal weight of glory will hang. Under and around 
that immortal pillar, sin shall never revive, nor error occur, 
nor strife divide, nor emulation estrange, nor death enter, 
nor pain be felt, nor weariness experienced; but life, love, 
joy, and holiness, flow on for ever, perfect as the bliss and 
being of God. 








En§* by F. Humphreys 


XXVIT. 
THE GIFT OF GOD. 


LUTHER, 


[Martin Luruer was the Apostle of the Sixteenth century—the mas- 
ter-mind and giant-father of the Reformation, under God. Lis mission 
was to re-open the way for God’s saving grace to flow freely to men—to 
re-awaken mankind to the sanctity of personal conscience. The 
papacy interposed itself between the human soul and the Almighty, 
till the words of Luther,—inspired by unquestioning faith in God’s 
declaration, “The just shall live by faith,’’—fell upon it like huge 
sledge-hammer blows, crushing its impious assumptions into the dust. 
The life of this great reformer, which is an outline sketch of the 
Reformation, must be very briefly referred to here. Martin Luther 
was born the son of a miner, at Hisleben, in Saxony, November 10th 
1483. He graduated from the University at Erfurt, became doctor of 
philosophy, and in 1505 gave up the world to bea monk. He was 
made doctor of divinity in 1512. Five years later, in fulfillment of 
his vows as a defender of Holy Scripture, he attacked, in ninety-five 
theses, the blasphemous sale of indulgences by Tetzel. As Pope Leo 
X. sanctioned these practices, Europe was convulsed by a moral shock, 
and the Reformation began. Neither frowns nor flatteries could 
silence this bold minister of God. A grand pivot-scene of human 
history,—perhaps unequalled elsewhere by mortal,—was the firm stand 
of Luther before assembled monarchs and princes in the Diet at 
Worms, where he refused to retract in those sublime words: “ Here 
I stand: I cannot do otherwise. God help me! Amen.” In 1522 the 
New Testament, and in 1534 the Old Testament, were translated by 
him into German. The struggles, labors, and achievements of his 
life are picturesquely told in ‘D’Aubigné’s History of the Reforma- 
tion. He died at Eisleben, February 18th 1546. His works are 

(429) 


amie (baie 


430 MARTIN LUTHER. 


published in twenty-seven volumes, and but few have been translated 
into English. Schulze & Gassman (Columbus, Ohio) are now issuing 
his admirable Sermons on the Gospels. From the second volume of 
these ‘‘ House Postils,’’—a series of plain preachings to his household 
—this version by Prof. E. Schmid is taken by permission. | 


** For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that 
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 
For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but 
that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him, 
is not condemned: but he that believeth not, is condemned already, be- 
cause he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 
And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and 
men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For 
every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest 
his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth, cometh to the 
light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in 
God.”’—John ii. 16-21. 


Tis Gospel is one of the most precious passages in the 
whole New Testament, and fully deserves, if it could be 
done, to be written with golden letters into our hearts. 
Every Christian ought to learn this consoling text by 
heart, and should repeat it once at least each day, so that 
we would know these words well and could readily apply 
them for our consolation and the strengthening of our faith. 
They are words which have power to gladden us when we 
are sad and to bring us back to life when we are dead, if we 


“—~~but accept them earnestly in true faith. But naamtieh as 


it is impossible for us to comprehend fully and to express 
properly the contents of this glorious text, let us pray earn- 
estly unto God to impress these words deeply upon our 
hearts through His Holy Spirit, so that they may become 
powerful in us, and may give us much joy and consolation, 
Amen. 

The sum and substance of this glorious, comfortable, and 
blessed passage is this, that God loved the world so dearly 
that He gave His only begotten Son to save men from 
eternal death and to give them everlasting life. Christ our 


THE GIFT OF GOD. 431 


Lord speaks to us, as it were, in these words: Heed what I 
tell you of a peculiar, unheard-of occurrence; yea, I will 
point you to a great, precious and valuable treasure, which 
is totally unlike any earthly gifts, by which you can now be 
rich and blessed for evermore. All the circumstances con- 
nected with the bestowal and reception of this precious gift 
are so peculiar and overwhelmingly grand that human 
thoughts cannot compass them, and much less can our words 
express their great importance. 

If we consider first the Giver of this blessing, we find 
that the text says nothing of emperors, kings, or other dig- 
nitaries of the world, but it speaks of God himself, who is 
incomprehensible and omnipotent, who has created every- 
thing through His Word, who has all and preserves all and 
is over all, compared with whom all creation, heaven and 
earth, with all they contain, is but as an insignificant grain 
of sand. He, the Almighty, is the great Giver of all bless- 
ings, and His gifts are so glorious that the most valued 
treasures of men, of emperors and kings, fade away into 
nothingness when compared with the mercies of God. Let 
us, therefore, rejoice greatly and sing for gladness in view 
of these blessings, and let us consider as mere trifles every- 
thing else that the world can bestow. What indeed can be 
greater or more glorious than the Almighty Himself! 

This God, who is infinite and ineffable, manifests His lov- 
ing-kindness in a degree beyond all measure. What He gives 
~ He gives not as something merited, or because it is His duty to 
give it, but simply, as our text says, through love. He is a 
Giver who begrudges not his gifts, but delights in bestowing 
'them; He gives on account of endless, divine love, as Christ 
says: ‘Hor God so loved the world.” 

There is no other virtue so glorious as love. What we 
dearly love we are ready to defend and protect at the risk 
of our life. Patience, chastity, temperance, &c., are also 
praiseworthy virtues, but cannot be compared with love; 


| 
432 MARTIN LUTHER. 


she is queen over them all, and comprehends them all. 
Surely if one is pious and righteous, he will not defraud or in- 
jure his brother, but will assist him in everything; but if we 
love a person, we are ever ready to devote ourselves entirely 
to his welfare and to assist him, according as he has need, with 
our counsel and our possessions. Thus, as Christ declares 
in our text, does God also do toward us. He gives us bless- 
ings beyond measure, not because He is patient or because 
we are righteous and deserve it, but through love, the great- 
est of all virtues. In view of this fact our hearts should 
awake, all our sadness should vanish, for we see before us 
the inexhaustible love of the divine heart, which we ought 
to cherish in true faith as the greatest of all gifts, knowing 
that God is the highest and most glorious Giver of blessings 
unto us, and that they all proceed from the greatest of all 
virtues. 

The fact that anything is given from true love makes the gift 
itself greater and more precious. If therefore we are con- 
vinced that love prompts the bestowal of any gift, we are 
well pleased; but when we doubt the existence of this 
motive in the giver, we care but little for his gift. Thus if 
God had given us only one eye or one foot and we were 
convinced that fatherly love prompted him to do this, we 
would‘be entirely content and better satisfied than we would 
otherwise be if we had a hundred eyes and a hundred feet. 

But the words are plain: “God so loved the world.” 
Therefore we ought to value highly, on account of His love, 
all His gifts, especially those which he has ordained to our 
salvation and the strengthening of our faith, as Holy Bap-. 
tism, the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ, &c. — 
These gifts appear not brilliant before the world, yet unto 
us they are heaven itself, and make us glad and cheerful 
because they flow from the love of our Father toward us and 
are instituted for our benefit. Therefore Christ in this con- 
nection not only teaches us that God will give us something, 


THE GIFT OF GOD. 433 


but also in what manner he will do this, namely, through 
divine, Fatherly love. 

Thus we see how great and ineffable are the Giver and 
the motive which prompts Him to grant us His blessings. 
But the gift itself is equally glorious and inexpressible. 
We hear from our text that God through love does not give 
us a dollar, a horse, a cow, an eye, a kingdom, or even the 
heavens with the sun and stars, nor the whole creation, but 
He gives us “‘ His only begotten Son,’’ who is like unto 
Himself in everything. 

This gift must surely arouse within us the deepest emo- 
tions of happiness, so that our hearts will ever be glad and 
leap for joy. Even as the Giver, God himself, is endless 
and incomprehensible in His love, so the gift itself, His Son, 
is eternal and unspeakable. God in this gift bestows Him- 
self with all that He is, as St. Paul says, (Rom. 8): “ He 
that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us 
all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all 
things?” ‘The victory over the devil, sin, death, and hell, as 
well as the gift of heaven, righteousness, and eternal life, is 
ours; yea all things are ours now, because we have the Son 
as our gift, in whom all else is comprehended. ; 

If we then truly believe in this gift and accept it in real 
faith, all creation, be it good or evil, be it life or death, hea- 
ven or hell, must be at our service, as St. Paul in another 
place says: ‘‘ For all things are yours; whether Paul, or 
Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things 
present, or things to come; all are yours; and ye are 
Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.”’ (1 Cor. 3.) Indeed, if we 
fully consider this gift, we must confess and say that it is a 
boon which in value transcends all else in heaven and earth, 
and in comparison with which all treasures in the world are 
as a mite to a mountain of gold. But alas, our miserable 
unbelief and the terrible darkness which enshrouds us, as 
Christ himself shortly after this complains, prevent our 

25 


€ 


434 MARTIN LUTHER. 


hearts from realizing what a blessing we have in this gift of 
the Son of God; we hear these glorious words, but they 
rush by our outward ears, and the heart remains cold and 
cheerless. When we hear of a house or farm which is for 
sale on easy terms, we run and are as eager to make the 
purchase as if our existence depended upon it; but when 
the glorious Gospel is preached, that God so loved the world 
that He gave His only begotten Son for its salvation, we 
are shamefully and sinfully careless and lazy about hearing 
and accepting this blessed truth. Who is at the bottom of 
this wicked indifference and carelessness as to the greatest 
gift, so that we do not accept it nor derive from it joy and 
consolation? No one but the old devil himself; he blinds 
our hearts to such a degree that we permit the preaching of 
this precious Gospel to go by unheeded, while we in the 
meanwhile busy ourselves with temporal cares. 

For this reason J remarked, at the beginning of this ser- 
mon, that we ought to repeat these words when we get out 
of bed in the morning and again when we retire in the even- 
ing, so that we may know them right well and praise God 
for His unutterable blessings. or surely all, the Giver, 
His love, and the Gift bestowed so undeservedly, simply 
through love, are most glorious and beyond our comprehen- 
sion. The gift is one freely given, and will ever remain 
a gracious blessing which cannot be borrowed, lent, nor 
bought; all we have to do to obtain it is to hold out our 
hand and to receive willingly and gladly this treasure. 
Alas, that our hands and hearts are so reluctant and even 
unwilling to take such a glorious gift, which is so freely 
offered, and which is designed to be ours for evermore ! 

_ What shall those people be called who refuse to accept a 
kind gift and blessing? Suppose a poor, ragged beggar, 
nearly exhausted with hunger, meets with a great and cha- 
ritable prince, who offers to give him a residence and a great 
yearly income, and to make him a lord, but that the beggar 


THE GIFT OF GOD. 435 


haughtily turns away from his benefactor without accepting 
his kindness, what would this foolish man be called by the 
world? Surely everybody would say that he is crazy and 
acts more like a brute than a human being. This would be 
the verdict of the world. Here, however, there is offered 
to the world no palace nor principality, no kingdom nor 
imperial domain, but the Son of God, and God himself 
urges the world to accept and keep this gift. But alas, we 
men are the ones who refuse to accept this gift; we turn 
our backs upon God, the kind Giver. From this we can 
judge what a great and horrible sin unbelief is, for it is not 
natural that men should refuse a gift and willingly turn 
from it. 

This proves how mad and thoughtless the world is; she 
does not rejoice at this gift of God, and refuses to receive 
it when offered. No doubt she would be quick to stretch 
out her hands for it if it were a dollar or a new coat; but 
as it is the Son of God, every one acts as if the gift were 
valueless. 

‘The world” is mentioned by name in this connection as 
the ungrateful one who spurns this gift which is offered to 
her freely. For what has the world done to merit such love 
and mercy of God? Nothing at all. She is the devil’s 
bride, the greatest enemy of God and the greatest blas- 
phemer. Yet we read here: ‘God so loved the world that 
He gave His only begotten Son.” 

My hearer, inscribe this truth deeply in your heart. And 
since you have now heard who God is, and what His gift is, 
which He gives alone through love, hear also what the world 
is. She is constituted of a multitude of people who do not 
believe in God and who make Him a liar; yea, they blas- 
pheme His name and Word, and persecute it. Hence they 
are those who disobey father and mother, who are murder- 
ers, adulterers, treacherous persons, thieves, hypocrites, and 
the like, as we, alas, can see but too clearly every day of 


436 MARTIN LUTHER. 


our life. The world is full of falsehood and blasphemy. 
Nevertheless God, through love, gives His Son to this bride 
of the devil, his greatest foe and persecutor. 

This fact also magnifies the gift. God does not regard 
the sins and crimes of the world, nor her persecution of His 
name and Word, so as to withhold His gift on that account. 
It would seem as if God were too holy and His gift too 
precious to endure the perversion and wickedness of the 
world. But God does not regard the sins of the world, 
whether they be against the first or against the second table 
of the law, as too great to permit the manifestation of his 
love toward her; yea, on account of her sins and great 
misery, in which we all would have to perish if God did not 
grant us His help, He is merciful, and prompted by His 
love, He comes to our assistance. 

Ought we then not to love such a merciful God in return 
and to trust implicitly in Him who forgives sins, and will not 
suffer the ungrateful world to perish for her transgressions, 
which are innumerable? Yea, the sins of every one of us 
are innumerable ; who then could enumerate the sins of the 
whole world? Yet we read that God is ready to forgive all 
our transgressions; for from the love of God comes the for- 
giveness of sins. We ought to consider this attentively. 
If God gives so much, yea even Himself to the world, which 
is His natural enemy, we are forced to conclude that His 
mercy and grace will also manifest itself toward us, no 
matter what our experiences are during this life. Therefore 
we ought to trust in this love, and hope for every blessing 
from God for Christ’s sake. 

Such thoughts must encourage the heart and make it glad. 
I and many Christians have to confess that while we were 
in popery we lived in great wickedness and idolatry, and 
were guilty of many a sin. God however did not punish 
such wickedness as we deserved, but manifested His love by 
revealing again through the Gospel His Son, whom He had 


THE GIFT OF GOD. 437 


given to the world. We were again permitted to hear and 
to understand the glorious Gospel, proclaiming that God is 
not wroth with the world, but that He loves us and has 
given His Son in our behalf. Alas, we are ungrateful and 
do not realize this truth as we should, else would our hearts 
be filled with joy, and we would be determined not only to 
serve God right willingly, but also to suffer without com- 
plaint everything in His service, on account of the precious 
treasure which we have. It is our unbelief which prevents 
such joy and seeks the pleasures of the world, iach come 
from the devil and are accursed. 

We have now considered four parts in our text, namely, 
the Giver of the gift, the gift itself, how it is given, and to 
whom it is given. It is impossible to express fully in words 
the great importance of these four considerations. 

Now follows the causa finalis, what purpose God has in 
view in the bestowal of this gift. It contains no outward 
advantages for us; we are neither clothed by it, nor fed, nor 
sheltered: much less is it injurious to our bodies; it contains 
no poison. Thus He gives His word, Baptism and the Sacra- 
ment of the Altar, not to our injury but to our salvation. 
This gift of the only begotten Son is granted unto us to this 
end, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but 
have everlasting life. 

From this declaration we learn that this gift does not 
bring us money, goods, honor, or power in this world, for all 
such benefits would be but transitory. Yea, if we had all 
these things we would nevertheless still be under the domin- 
ion of the devil. But now when the Son of God is given 
us, through the Father’s love toward us, it follows that we 
are freed from sin, death, and hell, if we believe in the 
Saviour; for He crushed the head of the serpent and 
despoiled it of its power; He slew sin and devoured death 
and extinguished the fire of hell, so that they are all van- 
quished for evermore and deprived of their supremacy over 


438 MARTIN LUTHER. 


us. So great and glorious was this gift. Honor, praise, and 
glory be unto God, the merciful Giver of this blessing, for 
ever and for ever, Amen. 

Surely we have reason enough to feel happy at this occur- 
rence, especially since Christ Himself asserts in our text 
that He was given us to overpower hell and to make our 
timid hearts bold and full of cheerfulness. Through the 
firm assurance that we have a reconciled God in heaven, 
who loves us and who through love gave His Son for us, so 
that we should not perish but have everlasting life, we are 
made glad; for we know that death has now no authority 
over us, and that eternal life is ours in Christ. 

This truth we cannot learn or understand too well; there- 
fore we ought to pray every day that God may through His 
Holy Spirit inscribe these words deeply in our hearts, that 
these may be illumined and enlivened thereby. Then will 
we become true theologians, who know Christ aright and 
adhere to His doctrine, prepared to suffer for this faith all 
ills and adversities which, in the providence of God, may 
visit us. But inasmuch as we do not value these words as 
we should, and only hear them with our outward ears, they 
cannot prove their power in our hearts; we remain to-day 
as we were yesterday, and it is a sin and a shame that we 
see not with our eyes nor hear with our ears. Most cer- 
tainly will the damned cry out on the day of judgment and 
lament, because they were so careless about the preaching 
and hearing of these words of consolation while yet on 
earth. ; 

Let us now consider in what way this glorious gift ought to 
be received, in what receptacle this precious treasure should 
be securely laid and guarded. It is of great importance to 
know this. Christ himself points it out to us in the words: 
‘That whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but — 
have everlasting life.”’ 

This testimony is plain and clear. It declares that faith, 


THE GIFT OF GOD. 439 


that is, a firm confidence in the mercy and love of God in 
Christ, is the receptacle into which we should receive and 
in which we should keep the gift of the Son of God. Love 
and mercy prompt God to give us such a boon, while we can 
receive and retain it only through faith. No work or merit 
of ours avails us anything in this; for even our best works 
are worthless in this regard. We must stretch forth our 
hands in faith; and as God through love is the Giver, so we 
must through faith in Christ be the receivers of His gift. 
We must believe what our text tells us, that God is kind 
and merciful, and that He manifests His love toward us in 
sending His only begotten Son into our flesh and blood, to 
take upon himself our sins, as John the Baptist and the 
prophet Isaiah declare: ‘“‘ This is the Lamb of God which 
taketh away the sins of the world.”” With such a gift, and 
assured of the love of God, we can stay our hearts against 
the assaults of sin and the accusations of our conscience ; 
for we know that he is not wroth nor terrible, but that for 
Christ’s sake he is kind and gracious unto us. Whoever 
believes this is truly happy and blessed, for this gift is so 
great and powerful that it crushes sin, death, and every evil. 
As a burning fire devours a little drop of water, thus are 
the sins of the whole world annihilated when they come in 
contact with Christ; yea, if we cling to Him in faith, our 
sins will be removed and destroyed, even as a straw is 
devoured in a mighty conflagration. 

Christ Himself tells us in our Gospel: “For God so 
loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that 
whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have 
everlasting life.’ The words ‘whosoever believeth in 
Him” are of especial importance here. Christ says nothing 
at all of good works as means unto salvation. Faith alone 
can and must receive this gift. Therefore we are undis- 
turbed by the noise of our adversaries; we cling firmly to 
this doctrine, for here it is said: ‘* Whosoever believeth in 


440 MARTIN LUTHER. 


Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.” If we 
doubt this, or change it, we accuse Christ of falsehood and 
set ourselves up as judges over Him. 

What glorious words of consolation and eternal life! 
God grant that we may faithfully receive them into our 
hearts. Whoever has accepted them in faith will not fear 
the devil, nor sin, nor death, but will exclaim, in great joy 
and firm assurance : I am comforted, for I now have the Son 
of God given unto me through the Father’s love toward the 
world. ‘This I firmly believe, because the Word of God, 
the holy Gospel, thus declares it unto me. And Thy Word, 
O God, and Thy Son Jesus Christ cannot lie; this I know 
and believe. Wherein I am weak in faith, give me strength 
to receive and to retain this Thy great gift and love, else it 
will be of no advantage unto me. It behooves us therefore 
to become more and more acquainted with this gift and to 
be comforted by it; this however can only take place 
through faith, as Christ teaches us. The stronger our faith, 
the greater will be our happiness and safety, so that we can 
cheerfully do and suffer what God imposes upon us, and this 
because we know that he is merciful and full of love 
toward us. eo 

Perhaps you will object and say: Yea, if I were as pious 
and holy as Peter, Paul, or the holy Virgin, then would I 
dare to believe and be comforted with this gift. They were 
saints, and no doubt for them this gift was intended, but I, 
a poor sinner, have no right to appropriate it unto myself, 
for I have so often and in such manifold ways offended and 
opposed God. Such thoughts cannot be avoided when we 
hear this Gospel, and then think of our condition and great 
transgressions. But we must watch that these thoughts do 
not gain such power over us that we lose sight of the Gos- 
pel; to this we must speedily return and in this find comfort. 
Such thoughts are really nothing but unbelief, which would 


THE GIFT OF GOD. 441 


keep us from this gift and its comfortable assurance of the 
forgiveness of our sins through faith in Christ. 

Unbelief, however, can be successfully combated only 
with the Word of God. Christ our Saviour gives unto us 
this Word, so that we dare not doubt its truthfulness. He 
tells us that His Father in heaven, the everlasting God, so 
loved “the world,” that He even gave for it His only 
begotten Son. Now it is evident that the expression “ the 
world” does not mean Mary, Peter, Paul, &c., but that it 
includes the whole human race, one and all, without any 
exception. Or have you any doubt that you are a human 
being? If so, feel your chest or your nose, and you will 
find out whether you are different from other people. Why 
then will you persistently exclude yourself from the applica- 
tion of this expression “ world,’’ when Christ so plainly 
includes in it all men, and does not apply it merely to the 
Virgin Mary, to St. Peter, or to St. Paul? If you and I 
refuse to accept Christ, because we think that we have no 
part in him, we make him a liar, for He said that He was 
given for the whole world. No, we must rather come to the 
opposite conclusion, that we have as good a right to this gift 
as Peter or Paul, or any one else has, simply because we are 
men, and as such a part of the world. Let us therefore 
beware and not doubt God’s words by thinking that we can- 
not be sure whether we belong to those, to whom and for 
whom He gave His Son that they might have everlasting 
life. With such thoughts we deny that God speaks the 
truth. 

Let us therefore shun such doubts, and the thoughts pro- 
ducing them, as we would shun the very devil himself. Let 
us be firm in faith and say: We know that God gave His 
gift not only to Peter and Paul, for if he had desired to 
bestow it only upon those perfectly worthy of it, He would 
have given it to the holy angels, who are pure, undefiled 
spirits, or to the sun and moon, which obey perfectly the 


442 MARTIN LUTHER. 


law of God by continuing in their prescribed course; but 
we read otherwise, namely, that ‘“‘God gave His Son unto 
the world.”” Therefore we all have a part in this glorious 
gift, just as well as David or any apostle. Who was David? 
Did he not commit gross sins? Who were the apostles? 
Were they not all sinners and unworthy of this gift ? 

Let no one, therefore, reason thus: I am a sinner, and 
am not as holy as St. Peter, consequently I dare not appro- 
priate this gift to my consolation. Far be it from us to 
harbor such thoughts. Let us believe in God’s Word impli- 
citly; and because He says that He gave this gift unto the 
world, let us all, since we belong to the world, no matter 
who we are, lay hold of it in faith; for if we do not, we 
deny the truthfulness of God, and thereby commit a great 
and damnable sin. 

Some perhaps might think: If Cod had told this unto me 
especially, I would believe it and be assured that it also applies 
tome. In this you err, my friend; God intentionally speaks 
in a general way, and says that He gave His Son unto the 
whole world, that all may be saved and none be excluded. 
If there are any who are not benefited by this gift, they are 
themselves to blame; they exclude themselves, through 
wicked unbelief, from the blessing of the gift of God, and 
will have to render an account for their faithlessness; yea, 
their own words will condemn them. Besides, we have 
the holy sacraments, instituted of Christ Himself, to be 
employed by us as means of grace, by which we are to 
obtain and to appropriate to ourselves this gift. 

This is a brief and simple explanation of our beautiful 
and precious text to-day, which is so comprehensive that it 
can never be exhausted. It contains the chief doctrine of 
salvation, that God, through love towards the wicked world, 
gave His only begotten Son to be its Saviour. Let every 
one learn what a glorious treasure and consolation the 
Christians have, who God is, and what the world is, and 


THE GIFT OF GOD. 443 


how through faith we can obtain and enjoy this mercy, as 
Christ says: ‘‘ Whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, 
but have everlasting life.’”’” The doctrine concerning good 
works and their relation to faith cannot be considered in 
this connection, and will receive attention at some other 
time. Here we must consider what God gives unto us and 
how we ought to receive His’ gift. 

Christ does not dwell here upon the duties which a Chris- 
tian must fulfil to prove himself an obedient, beloved child 
of God, nor does he speak of the necessary gratitude for the 
love of God and the gift of eternal life. It suffices, there- 
fore, if we in this connection restrict our consideration to 
the mercy of God, and to the truth that we are saved alone 
through this grace, which must be accepted in true faith, and 
with which good works on our part have nothing to do; for 
we are saved only through the love of God who gave His 
only begotten Son for us, for whose sake he now forgives us 
all our sins. God grant us his grace, that we may believe this 
truth and be happy in it in life and in death. We ask this 
for the sake of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour. Amen. 


XLV Ls 
COMMUNION WITH GOD. 


NEWMAN. 

[Joun Huenry Newman, B. D., an eloquent coadjutor of Dr. Pusey in 
the ‘ Oxford Tract’’ retrocession from the doctrines of the Reformation, 
and author of the famous ‘‘ Tract No. 90,’ was born in London, Feb- 
ruary 2lst 1801. He gained high honors at Trinity College, Oxford, 
was ordained in 1824, and received the vicarage of St. Mary’s, Oxford, 
four years later. Here were preached thoughtful and brilliant ser- 
mons, till his lamentable yet conscientious secession to the Roman 
Catholic Church in 1845. He is now superior of the Oratory of St. 
Philip Neri, Birmingham, and head of a high school for Roman Cath- 
olic youth. Almost all his Protestant sermons, published in nine vol- 
umes, show evidence of his ascetic spirit, theological convictions, and 
thorough moral consecration. (The text following is the Psalter 
version.) ] 


“ One thing have I desired of the Lord, which 1 will require: even 
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to be- 
hold the fair beauty of the Lord, and to visit his temple.””—Psalm 
xxvii. 4, ; 


Wuat the Psalmist desired, we Christians enjoy to the 
full,—the liberty of holding communion with God in His 
Temple all through our life. Under the Law, the presence 
of God was but in one place; and therefore could be 
approached and enjoyed only at set times. For far the 
greater part of their lives, the chosen people were in one 
sense “‘ cast out of the sight of His eyes ;” and the periodical 
return to it which they were allowed, was a privilege highly 
coveted and earnestly expected. Much more precious was 
the privilege of continually dwelling in His sight, which is 
spoken of in the text. ‘One thing,” says the Psalmist, 
‘have I desired of the Lord .. . . that I may dwell in the 
house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the fair 
beauty of the Lord, and to visit His temple.” He desired 

(444) 


COMMUNION WITH GOD. 445 


to have continually that communion with God in prayer, 
praise, and meditation, to which His presence admits the 
soul; and this, I say, is the portion of Christians. Faith 
opens upon us Christians the Temple of God wherever we 
are; for that Temple is a spiritual one, and so is everywhere 
present. ‘‘ We have access,’ says the Apostle,—that is, we 
have admission or introduction, “‘by faith into this grace 
wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” 
And hence, he says elsewhere, ‘‘ Rejoice in the Lord alway, 
and again I say, Rejoice.” ‘‘ Rejoice evermore, pray with- 
out ceasing; in everything give thanks.’’ And St. James, 
“‘ Ts any afflicted? let him pray: is any merry? let him sing 
Psalms.” Prayer, praise, thanksgiving, contemplation, are 
the peculiar privilege and duty of a Christian, and that for 
their own sakes, from the exceeding comfort and satisfaction 
they afford him, and without reference to any definite results 
to which prayer tends, without reference to the answers 
which are promised to it, from a general sense of the blessed- 
ness of being under the shadow of God’s throne. 

I propose, then, in what follows, to make some remarks 
on communion with God, or prayer in a large sense of the 
word; not as regards its external consequences, but as it 
may be considered to affect our own minds and hearts. | 

What, then, is prayer? It is (if it may be said reverently) 
conversing with God. We converse with our fellow-men, 
and then we use familiar language, because they are our 
fellows. We converse with God, and then we use the low- 
liest, awfullest, calmest, concisest language we can, because 
He ts God. Prayer, then, is divine converse, differing from 
human as God differs from man. Thus St. Paul says, “ Our 
conversation is in heaven,’’—not indeed thereby meaning 
converse of words only, but intercourse and manner of living 
generally ; yet still in an especial way converse of words or 
prayer, because language is the special means of all inter- 
course. Our intercourse with our fellow-men goes on, not 


446 JOHN HENRY NEWMAN. 


by sight, but by sound, not by eyes, but by ears. Hearing 
is the social sense, and language is the social bond. In like 
manner, as the Christian’s conversation is in heaven, as it is 
his duty, with Enoch and other Saints, to walk with God, so 
his voice is in heaven, his heart ‘“ inditing of a good matter,” 
of prayers and praises. Prayers and praises are the mode 
of his intercourse with the next world, as the converse of 
business or recreation is the mode in which this world is 
carried on in all its separate courses. He who does not pray, 
does not claim his citizenship with heaven, but lives, though 
an heir of the kingdom, as if he were a child of earth. 
Now, it is not surprising if that duty or privilege, which is 
the characteristic token of our heavenly inheritance, should 
also have an especial influence upon our fitness for claiming 
it. He who does not use a gift, loses it; the man who does 
not. use his voice or limbs, loses power over them, and becomes 
disqualified for the state of life to which he is called. In 
like manner, he who neglects to pray, not only suspends the 
enjoyment, but is in a way to lose the possession, of his 
divine citizenship. We are members of another world; we 
have been severed from the companionship of devils, and 
brought into that invisible kingdom of Christ which faith 
alone discerns,—that mysterious Presence of God which 
encompasses us, which is in us, and around us, which is in 
our heart, which enfolds us as though with a robe of light, 
hiding our scarred and discolored souls from the sight of 
Divine Purity, and making them shining as the Angels; and 
which flows in upon us too by means of all forms of beauty 
and grace which this visible world contains, in a starry host 
or (if I may so say) a milky way of divine companions, the 
inhabitants of Mount Zion, where we dwell. Faith, I say, 
alone apprehends all this; but yet there 7s something which 
is not left to faith,—our own tastes, likings, motives, and 
habits. Of these we are conscious in our degree, and we can 
make ourselves more and more conscious; and as conscious- 


COMMUNION WITH GOD. 447 


ness tells us what they are, reason tells us whether they are 
such as become, as correspond with, that heavenly world into 
which we have been translated. 

I say then, it is plain to common sense that the man who 
has not accustomed himself to the language of heaven will be 
no fit inhabitant of it when, in the Last Day, it is perceptibly 
revealed. The case is like that of a language or style of 
speaking of this world; we know well a foreigner from a 
native. Again, we know those who have been used to kings’ 
courts or educated society from others. By their voice, 
accent, and language, and not only so, by their gestures and 
gait, by their usages, by their mode of conducting themselves 
and their principles of conduct, we know well what a vast 
difference there is between those who have lived in good 
society and those who have not. What indeed is called “ good 
society” is often very worthless society. I amnot speaking 
of it to praise it; I only mean, that, as the manners which 
men call refined or courtly are gained only by intercourse 
with courts and polished circles, and as the influence of the 
words there used (that is, of the ideas which those words, 
striking again and again on the ear, convey to the mind), 
extends in a most subtle way over all that men do, over the 
turn of their sentences, and the tone of their questions and 
replies, and their general bearing, and the spontaneous flow 
of their thoughts, and their mode of viewing things, and the 
general maxims or heads to which they refer them, and the 
motives which determine them, and their likings and dis- 
likings, hopes and fears, and their relative estimate of per- 
sons, and the intensity of their perceptions towards particular 
objects; so a habit of prayer, the practice of turning to God 
and the unseen world, in every season, in every place, in 
every emergency (let alone its supernatural effect of prevail- 
ing with God),—prayer, I say, has what may be called a 
natural effect, in spiritualizing and elevating the soul. A 
man is no longer what he was before; gradually, impercepti- 


448 JOHN HENRY NEWMAN. 


bly to himself, he has imbibed a new set of ideas, and become 
imbued with fresh principles. He is as one coming from 
kings’ courts, with a grace, a delicacy, a dignity, a propriety, 
a justness of thought and taste, a clearness and firmness of 
principle, all his own. Such is the power of God’s secret 
grace acting through those ordinances which He has enjoined 
us; such the evident fitness of those ordinances to produce 
the results which they set before us. As speech is the organ 
of human society, and the means of human civilization, so 
is prayer the instrument of divine fellowship and divine 
training. 

I will give, for the sake of illustration, some instances in 
detail of one particular fault of mind, which among others a 
habit of prayer is calculated to cure. 

For instance; many a man seems to have no grasp at all 
of doctrinal truth. He cannot get himself to think it of 
importance what a man believes, and what not. He tries to 
do so; for a time he does; he does for a time think that a 
certain faith is necessary for salvation, that certain doctrines 
are to be put forth and maintained in charity to the souls 
of men. Yet though he thinks so one day, he changes the 
next; he holds the truth, and then lets it go again. He is 
filled with doubts; suddenly the question crosses him, ‘Is it 
possible that such and such a doctrine 7s necessary?” and 
he relapses into an uncomfortable sceptical state, out of 
which there is no outlet. Reasonings do not convince him; 
he cannot be convinced; he has no grasp of truth. Why? 
Because the next world is not a reality to him; it only exists 
in his mind in the form of certain conclusions from certain 
reasonings. It is but an inference; and never can be more, 
never can be present to his mind, until he acts, instead of 
arguing. Let him but act as if the next world were before 
him; let him but give himself to such devotional exercises 
as we ought to observe in the presence of an Almighty, All- 


COMMUNION WITH GOD. 449 


holy, and All-merciful God, and it will be a rare case indeed 
if his difficulties do not vanish. 

Or again: a man may have a natural disposition towards 
caprice and change; he may be apt to take up first one 
fancy, then another, from novelty or other reason; he may 
take sudden likings or dislikings, or be tempted to form a 
scheme of religion for himself, of what he thinks best or most 
beautiful out of all the systems which divide the world. — 

Again : he is troubled perhaps with a variety of unbecoming 
thoughts, which he would fain keep out of his mind if he 
could. He finds himself unsettled and uneasy, dissatisfied 
with his condition, easily excited, sorry at sin one moment, 
forgetting it the next, feeble-minded, unable to rule himself, 
tempted to dote upon trifles, apt to be caught and influenced 
by vanities, and to abandon himself to languor or indolence. 

Once more: he has not a clear perception of the path of 
truth and duty. This is an especial fault among us now-a- 
days: men are actuated perhaps by the best feelings and the 
most amiable motives, and are not fairly chargeable with 
insincerity; and yet there is a want of straightforwardness 
in their conduct. They allow themselves to be guided by 
expediency, and defend themselves, and perhaps so plausibly, 
that though you are not convinced, you are silenced. They 
attend to what others think, more than to what God says; 
they look at Scripture more as a gift to man than as a gift 
from God; they consider themselves at liberty to modify its 
plain precepts by a certain discretionary rule; they listen 
to the voice of great men, and allow themselves to be swayed 
by them; they make comparisons and strike the balance 
between the impracticability of the whole that God commands, 
and the practicability of effecting a part, and think they may 
consent to give up something, if they can secure the rest. 
They shift about in opinion, going first a little this way, then 
a little that, according to the loudness and positiveness with 
which others speak; they are at the mercy of the last 

foe bo 2F 


450 JOHN HENRY NEWMAN. 


speaker, and they think they observe a safe, judicious, and 
middle course, by always keeping a certain distance behind 
those who go furthest. Or they are rash in their religious 
projects and undertakings, and forget that they may be vio- 
lating the lines and fences of God’s law, while they move 
about freely at their pleasure. Now, I will not judge 
another; I will not say that in this or that given case the 
fault of mind in question (for any how it is a fault), does 
certainly arise from some certain cause which I choose to 
guess at: but at least there are cases where this wavering 
of mind does arise from scantiness of prayer; and if so, it is 
worth a man’s considering, who is thus unsteady, timid, and 
dimsighted, whether this scantiness be not perchance the ~ 
true reason of such infirmities in his own case, and whether 
a ‘continuing instant in prayer,’’—by which I mean, not 
merely prayer morning and evening, but something suitable 
to his disease, something extraordinary, as medicine is extra- 
ordinary, a “redeeming of time”’ from society and recrea- 
tion in order to pray more,—whether such a change in his 
habits would not remove them ? 

For what is the very promise of the New Covenant but 
stability ? what is it, but a clear insight into the truth, such 
as will enable us to know how to walk, how to profess{ how 
to meet the circumstances of life, how to withstand gain- 
sayers? Are we built upon a rock, or upon the sand? are 
we after all tossed about on the sea of opinion, when Christ 
has stretched out His hand to us, to help and encourage us ? 
‘Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed 
on Thee, because he trusteth in Thee.” Such is the word 
of promise. Can we possibly have apprehensions about what 
man will do to us or say of us, can we flatter the great ones 
of earth, or timidly yield to the many, or be dazzled by 
talent, or drawn aside by interest, who are in the habit of 
divine conversations? ‘‘Ye have an unction from the Holy 
One,” says St. John, “and ye know all things. I have not 


COMMUNION WITH GOD. 451 


written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because 
ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth..... The 
anointing which ye have received of Him abideth in you, and 
ye need not that any man teach you..... Whosoever is 
born of God, doth not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in 
him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.’ This 
is that birth, by which the baptized soul not only enters, but 
actually embraces and realizes the kingdom of God. This is 
the true and effectual regeneration, when the seed of life 
takes root in man and thrives. Such men have accustomed 
themselves to speak to God, and God has ever spoken to 
them; and they feel “the powers of the world to come” as 
truly as they feel the presence of this world, because they 
have been accustomed to speak and act as if it were real. 
All of us must rely on something ; all must look up, to admire, 
court, make themselves one with something. Most men cast 
in their lot with the visible world; but true Christians with 
Saints and Angels. 

Such men are little understood by the world because they 
are not of the world; and hence it sometimes happens that 
even the better sort of men are often disconcerted and vexed 
by them. It cannot be otherwise; they move forward on 
principles so different from what are commonly assumed as 
true. They take for granted, as first principles, what the 
world wishes to have proved in detail. They have become 
familiar with the sights of the next world, till they talk of 
them as if all men admitted them. The immortality of truth, 
its oneness, the impossibility of falsehood coalescing with it, 
what truth is, what it should lead one to do in particular 
cases, how it lies in the details of life,—all these points are 
mere matters of debate in the world, and men go through 
long processes of argument, and pride themselves on their 
subtleness in defending or attacking, in making probable or 
improbable, ideas which are assumed without a word by those 
who have lived in heaven, as the very ground to start from. 


452 JOHN HENRY NEWMAN. 


In consequence, such men are c4lled bad disputants, incon- 
secutive reasoners, strange, eccentric, or perverse thinkers, 
merely because they do not take for granted, nor go to prove, 
what others do,—because they do not go about to define and 
determine the sights (as it were), the mountains and rivers 
and plains, and sun, moon, and stars, of the next world. 
And hence, in turn, they are commonly unable to enter into 
the ways of thought or feelings of other men, having been 
engrossed with God’s thoughts and God’s ways. Hence, 
perhaps, they seem abrupt in what they say and do; nay, 
even make others feel constrained and uneasy in their pre- 
sence. Perhaps they appear reserved too, because they take 
so much for granted which might be drawn out, and because 
they cannot bring themselves to tell all their thoughts from 
their sacredness, and because they are drawn off from free 
conversation to the thought of heaven, on which their minds 
rest. Nay, ‘perchance, they appear severe, because their 
motives are not understood, nor their sensitive jealousy for . 
the honor of God and their charitable concern for the good 
of their fellow-Christians duly appreciated. In short, to the 
world they seem like foreigners. We know how foreigners 
strike us; they are often to owr notions strange and un- 
pleasing in their manners; why is this? merely because they 
are of a different country. ‘ Hach country has its own man- 
ners,—one may not be better than other; but we naturally 
like our own ways, and we do not understand other. We do 
not see their meaning. We misconstrue them; we think 
they mean something unpleasant, something rude, or over- 
free, or haughty, or unrefined, when they do not. And in 
like manner, the world at large, not only is not Christian, 
but cannot discern or understand the Christian. Thus our 
Blessed Lord Himself was not recognised or honored by His 
relatives, and (as is plain to every reader of Scripture) He 
often seems to speak abruptly and severely. So too St. Paul 
was considered by the Corinthians as contemptible in speech. 


COMMUNION WITH GOD. 453 


And hence St. John, speaking of ‘what manner of love the 
Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the 
sons of God,” adds, “therefore the world knoweth us not, 
because it knew Him not.” Such is the effect of divine 
meditations: admitting us into the next world, and with- 
drawing us from this; making us children of God, but. withal 
** strangers unto our brethren, even aliens unto our mother’s 
children.” Yea, though the true servants of God increase 
in meekness and love day by day, and to those who know 
them will seem what they really are; and though their good 
works are evident to all men, and cannot be denied, yet such 
is the eternal law which goes between the Church and the 
world—we cannot be friends of both; and they who take 
their portion with the Church, will seem, except in some 
remarkable cases, unamiable to the world, for the “world 
knoweth them not,” and does not like them though it can 
hardly tell why; yet (as St. John proceeds) they have this 
blessing, that ‘‘when He shall appear, they shall be like 
Him, for they shall see Him as He is.”’ 

And if, as it would seem, we must choose between the two, 
surely the world’s friendship may be better parted with than 
our fellowship with our Lord and Saviour. What indeed, 
have we to do with courting men, whose faces are turned 
towards God? We know how men feel and act when they 
come to die; they discharge their worldly affairs from their 
minds, and try to realize the unseen state. Then this world 
is nothing to them. It may praise, it may blame; but they 
feel it not. They are leaving their goods, their deeds, their 
sayings, their writings, their names, behind them ; and they 
care not for it, for they wait for Christ. To one thing alone 
they are alive, His coming; they watch against it, if so be - 
they may then be found without shame. Such is the con- 
duct of dying men; and what all but the very hardened do 
at the last, if their senses fail not and their powers hold, 
that does the true Christian all life long. He is ever dying 


454 . JOHN HENRY NEWMAN. 


while he lives; he is on his bier, and the prayers for the sick 
are saying over him. He has no work but that of making 
his peace with God, and preparing for the judgment. He . 
has no aim but that of being found worthy to escape the 
things that shall come to pass and to stand before the Son 
of man. And therefore day by day he unlearns the love of 
this world, and the desire of its praise; he can bear to belong 
to the nameless family of God, and to seem to the world 
strange in it and out of place, for so he is. 

And when Christ comes at last, blessed indeed will be his 
lot. He has joined himself from the first to the conquering 
side; he has risked the present against the future, preferring 
the chance of eternity to the certainty of time; and then 
his reward will be but beginning, when that of the children 
of this world is come to an end. In the words of the wise 
man, ‘¢ Then shall the righteous man stand in great boldness 
before the face of such as have afflicted him, and made no 
account of his labors. When they see it they shall be trou- 
bled with terrible fear, and shall be amazed at the strange- 
ness of His’salvation, so far beyond all that they looked for. 
And they, repenting and groaning for anguish of spirit, shall 
say within themselves, This is he whom we had sometimes in 
derision and a proverb of reproach; we fools counted his life 
madness, and his end to be without honor. How is he num- 
bered among the children of God, and his lot is among the 
saints |” 


XXIX. 
THE LORD JESUS CHRIST. 


IRVING. 

[In power of originality and eloquence as in stature, Epwarp Ir- 
vine towered amidst English preachers a half century ago. In De 
Quincey’s words, he was “ unquestionably, by many degrees, the great- 
est orator of our times.”” His sincerity and piety are evident ; yet the 
latter years of his ministry were embittered by indiscreet acts, arising, 
perhaps, from partial insanity. He was born at Annan, Scotland, in 
1792, and was educated at the University of Edinburgh. For three 
years he was an assistant to Dr. Chalmers, in Glasgow, and in 1822 
was installed in the Scottish Presbyterian Church, London. Here he 
enjoyed unbounded popularity, till his encouragement in his congrega- 
tion of unintelligible rhapsodies as utterances of the Spirit, and alleged 
misstatements of doctrine, led to his ejection by the Presbytery on the 
charge of heresy, in 1832. Thence arose the Irvingites, with whose 
conceits he had little to do. He died in Glasgow of consumption, 
December 8th 1834. ] 


“ And from the Lord Jesus Christ.’’—Eph. i. 2. 


THE grace and peace with which Paul the apostle of Jesus » 
Christ doth bless the saints at’ Ephesus and the faithful in 
Christ Jesus, proceedeth not from God the Father only, but 
equally and alike from the Lord Jesus Christ ; and this same 
conjunction of the Father and the Son as the source and 
origin of all spiritual benefits, our apostle maketh not in 
one, but in all his epistles, and not he only but also the other 
apostles. We may never doubt, therefore, from this the 
constant style of Holy Scripture, that the two Divine Per- 
sons thus advanced into equal honor as the fountain of grace 
and peace, are to be equally acknowledged by the Church, 
and witnessed to by the saints; that they may not and can- 
not be separated or contemplated apart: ‘‘ No man knoweth 


the Son but the Father; neither knoweth any man the 
(455) 


456 EDWARD IRVING. 


Father save the Son, and he to whom the Son shall reveal 
him.” Therefore the gospel is by our apostle called 
“the mystery of God, and [both] of the Father, and of 
Christ,” (Col. ii. 2.) And by the apostle John it is declared, 
‘“‘Tf that which ye have heard from the beginning shall re- 
main in you, ye shall also continue in the Son, and in the 
Father.”’ (1 John ii. 24.) And again, “Truly our fellow- 
ship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.” 
(Chap. i. 3.) Into that part and office in the mystery which 
the Father hath we have inquired diligently in several dis- 
courses, and we do now propose, by the help of the Spirit, 
to testify unto the office of the Son, according as it is con- 
tained under His name, Jesus Christ the Lord. Into the 
mystery of His name, Jesus, we would then with all rever- 
ence first inquire. . ) 

The name Jesus being written at full length is Jehoshua, 
which consisteth of two parts—Hoshea, which was the ori- 
ginal name of the son of Nun; and Jah, which was added 
by Moses when he sent him to spy out the land of Canaan. 
Hoshea is ‘saviour,’ or ‘salvation ;”’ on which account it 
is said, ‘“‘ Thou shalt call his name JEsus, for he shall save 
his people from their sins.’ (Matt. i. 21.) And Jah is a 
contraction of Jehovah, used singly to denote the whole 
force of that name in Ps. Ixvii. 4, ‘‘ Extol him that rideth 
upon the heavens by his name Jah;” used along with it to 
give it force and intensity, in two passages of Isaiah. The 
first is: ‘Behold, God is my salvation (Hoshea); I will 
trust, and not be afraid: for the Lord (Jah) Jehovah is my 
strength and my song; he also is become my salvation 
(Hoshea).’”’ (Chap. xii. 2.) This is a very remarkable pass- 
age, both as containing the two parts of the name Jesus, 
Jah and Hoshea, and as declaring that the Jewish people in 
the day of their restoration shall say that Jah Jehovah hath 
become Jah Hoshea, or Jesus their Saviour; and in conse- 
quence of this, their confession of the name of Christ, it is 


THE LORD JESUS CHRIST. 457 


added, ‘ Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the 
wells of salvation; which I understand to signify their 
abundant and joyful partaking of the Holy Ghost. The 
other passage in which Jah occurs is to the same effect, and 
spoken of the same people against the same time,—“‘ We 
have a strong city: salvation (Hoshea) will God appoint for 
walls and bulwarks. . . . Trust ye in the Lord (Jehovah) 
for ever: for in the Lord (Jah) is everlasting strength.” 
(Chap. xxvi. 1, 4.) This separation of Jah, a part of the 
name Jehovah, from the rest, and this use of it in the sepa- 
rate form always in connection with the idea of salvation, 
and hence with the very word Hoshea, I cannot but regard 
as a preparation for that combination and composition of the 
word into the one name Jehoshua, which in the type had 
been already done by an act of God’s minister, and in the 
antitype was about to be done by the act of God himself. I 
observe further, that Hoshea had his name changed when he 
went to spy out the land of Canaan, the inheritance which 
God had by the covenant of Sinai set apart unto the seed 
of Abraham. The son of Nun had already, so to speak, 
won his name of “saviour,” by the various battles wherein 
God had given him to smite the enemies of Israel; but the 
name of Jehoshua he had to win for himself, by going into 
the enemy’s land and bringing out. of it a faithful and good 
report, which was to signify that the Son of God upon coming 
into this world, which God hath intended for an inheritance 
of His saints, should have the name of Jesus given to Him, 
and should earn the like, not by reporting it able to be 
taken, but by purchasing it to himself out of the hands of 
the enemy, and acquiring the right to it for His people, 
against the dispensation of the fullness of the times, when 
the purchased possession shall be redeemed. These being 
the component parts of the name Jesus, let us now inquire 
into the meaning of each of them; for it is by understand- 


458 EDWARD IRVING. 


ing the name of the Son that we shall understand His per- 
son and His offices in the blessed Trinity. 

The name Jah or Jehovah is sufficiently explained to us 
in that which the Lord spake unto Moses from the midst of 
the bush,—‘‘ And God said unto Moses, I am THAT I AM: 
and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, 
I am hath sent me unto you,” (Exod. iii. 14) ; which teacheth 
us that self-existent, underived, unchangeable, self-sufficient 
being is that which is contained under the name Jehovah: self- 
existent in himself, underived from any higher origin, and 
unchangeable by any cause; all-sufficient in himself, and 
therefore the origin, the changer, and the sufficiency of every 
other existing person and thing. This incommunicable name 
the Jews held to be unutterably sacred, and would by no 
means name it, but retained it in the mysterious holiness of 
impenetrable silence; and whenever it occurred in the text 
they pronounced in its stead some of the appellations of 
God,—a fond conceit, which degenerated at length into a 
base superstition, yet worthy to be mentioned as teaching us 
the opinion of the nation that in this name lay folded up, 
as it were, the very essence and substance of that Divine 
Being, of whom all the other names expressed only the at- 
tributes. There might also perhaps be concealed under this 
rabbinical conceit another act of worship done unto Moses 
and the Mosaic economy, with a view to which this name 
was assumed: as it is written in Exod. vi. 8,—“ I appeared 
unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of 
God Almighty; but by my name Jehovah was I not known 
to them.”’ This name Almighty, or Elohim, is proper to 
God as the maker of all the creatures, ere yet He had re- 
vealed himself as the chooser out and redeemer of a part 
of the fallen creatures, and was most proper to preserve 
men from running into the worship of the creature, by con- 
tinually declaring that it was made by another than itself; 
but when God began to manifest His purpose according to 


THE LORD JESUS -“GHRIST. 459 


election by the calling out of Abraham, and His salvation 
of a Church from the wrecks of fallen nature by the impu- 
tation of a righteousness not inherent in it, but derived from 
Him, then He added to the name of God, the Creator of 
all, the special and peculiar propriety which He had in His 
chosen ones, saying, “‘I am the God of Abraham, and Isaac, 
and Jacob,”’ and appointing the same for a memorial unto 
all generations; because this Church portion, the saved por- 
tion of the fallen creatures, shall endure unto all ages, and 
constitute God’s most excellent and glorious inheritance. 
But, at the call of Moses, being about to institute a cove- 
nant wherein He was to pledge Himself to ten thousand 
things, whereof not one was to be perfectly accomplished 
until after a hundred ages of sore contradiction and oppres- 
sion, He thinketh it good to take unto Himself a- name 
which shall be expressive of constancy and faithfulness in 
the highest possible sense,—a name which every one that 
knew it might trust; a name which should signify the same 
yesterday, to-day, and for ever. And this name is Jehovah, 
of which Jah, the essence, hath been compounded into Jesus. 
By which component part, therefore, it is signified that the 
Jehovah of the covenant was no other than the Son, the, 
same Divine Person who animated the child of the virgin; 
and that all things which were spoken by Jehovah, Jesus 
undertaketh to fulfil, That word Jah, incorporated with 
Hoshea in the name of our blessed Lord, is to me a pledge 
that all things which are written in the law and the prophets 
the Son of man hath come not to destroy but to fulfil. And 
accordingly we do find that Jesus hath applied to Him the 
essential meaning of Jehovah, which is independence on all 
outward causes, and unalterable by time, as in Rev. xiii. 8,— 
‘‘ Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.” 
And again (Heb. i. 10), quoting from Psalm cii., ‘“‘ Thou, 
Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; 
and the heavens are the works of thine hands; they shall 


460 EDWARD IRVING. 


perish, but thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as 
doth a garment; and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, 
and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy 
years shall not fail.”’. And, not to enumerate more instances, 
it is said of Christ (Rev. i. 8), what had just been said of 
the Father,—“I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and 
the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and 
which is to come, the Almighty,—an expression which some 
have thought to be no more than a translation into Greek 
of the Hebrew words Jehovah Elohim, or the Lord God. 
Unto this much have we attained, therefore, that all the 
might and holiness, all the magnificence of power and splen- 
dor of operation, all the faithfulness and immovableness of 
purpose, together with all words whatsoever written of Je- 
hovah and the old dispensation, are the property of Him 
who hath revealed himself under the new as a man of sor-. 
rows and acquainted with grief, the meek, the humble, and 
the lowly Jesus. 

The second part of this blessed name Jehoshua is Honheas 
which signifies salvation, and was added to the name Jah 
when the person of the Son united itself to the substance 
of the fallen creature for the end of redeeming and saving 
it; wherefore in this form of the God-man, while yet only 
conceived but not born, He is called Jesus, “for He shall 
save His people from their sins.” Though Jehovah had 
been known under the law as a great deliverer of His people 
from manifold oppressions, these deliverances had all been 
frustrated by their persevering disobedience, and they were 
now sold under the sorest bondage of all which they had 
ever proved, a bondage which endureth unto this day. He 
was known to them as yet, therefore, not as their Saviour but 
as their Judge, and the avenger of their wickedness. Never- 
theless, in the mouth of all the prophets He had upon all 
occasions, and especially upon the eve of each new trial, 
assured them with the promise of a new and everlasting cove- 


THE LORD JESUS CHRIST, 461 


nant, under which He would be merciful to their unrighteous- 
nesses, and would remember their iniquities no more, 
when the sin of Judah and of Israel should be sought for 
and should not be found; and when, together with all sin, 
all suffering and oppression should pass away. ‘To execute 
these promises and to bring in this dispensation of eternal 
salvation, the virgin’s Son had been promised both by Isaiah 
and Jeremiah; and now that the virgin’s Child is conceived 
He receiveth the name of Jah Hoshea, Jehovah the Saviour, 
to assure the faithful that He, and none but He, would ac- 
complish all these things; and accordingly Zecharias, when 
his tongue was loosed, did prophesy of Him in these words, 
‘< Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he hath visited and 
redeemed his people: and hath raised up an horn of salva- 
tion for us in the house of his servant David: as he spake 
by the mouth of all his holy prophets which have been since 
the world began.”’ To this deliverance not yet accomplished 
unto the Jewish people, to this salvation from their sins 
under the penalty of which they are still suffering, there 
can be no doubt that the name Jesus hath a primary refer- 
ence, and that it was thus understood both by the blessed 
virgin and by the prophet Zecharias. It would not have 
been proper to the Jewish economy, still in existence, to 
have spoken otherwise of Messiah than as He had been 
spoken of by all the prophets; and if He had been spoken 
of to them in the higher sense in which we are now to con- 
template His salvation, it would have been to them unintel- 
ligible. The sense I mean is that in which all believers look 
upon Him as their Saviour in taking away their guilt and their 
judgment, and regenerating their natures, and raising them 
from the dead to the inheritance of eternal life and blessed- 
ness. In this higher sense of the Redeemer of the fallen 
creatures whom God hath chosen unto life eternal, the Jew- 
ish people were not privileged to perceive Him otherwise 
than through the emblems of their state and nature, and by 


462 EDWARD IRVING. 


these emblems it shall yet be taught them against the day 
of their glory; but to us, taught by the Spirit, it is given 
to understand how Jehovah became the Saviour that instant 
He united Himself to the seed of the woman. In taking a 
part of the fallen creature into union with himself and 
saving that part from the pollution of sin, the corruption of 
the grave, and the power of Satan, He gave assurance that 
God was with Him, and in Him wrought this same thing for 
His own glory; gave assurance that He was both purposed 
and able to redeem and restore with greater glory the fallen 
creature, to save it from sin and death, to bless it with holi- 
ness and eternal life. When the Son of God took flesh, He 
entered upon the travail of salvation; when He carried that 
flesh triumphant to the right hand of God, he finished the 
work. By saving His own human nature, by preserving it 
from the taint of sin, by delivering it from the power of 
Satan, by carrying it into the region of glory, He did ob- 
tain eternal redemption for us, He did receive power to 
destroy him that had the power of death, and to deliver all 
them who through the fear of death were subject to bondage. 
This power of saving others proceedeth from His saving of 
himself. He voluntarily brought himself into peril by 
taking to himself our nature; by being incarnate He be- 
came the champion of our salvation, by enduring the incar- 
nation and overcoming all the creature’s fallen condition, 
He accomplished our salvation; and from thenceforth He 
standeth alone the head of salvation, as He had been the 
head of creation,—not only Jehovah Elohim, the Lord God, 
but Jehovah Hoshea, the Lord the Saviour. Now this yol- 
untary peril which the Son of God undertook was for the 
greatest ends of the creature’s glory and of the creature’s 
well-being,—seeing God’s glory as the Creator had been 
obscured, and the creature’s goodly condition subverted by 
the fall; and therefore Jehovah is not fully manifested as 
the Saviour until all the effects of the fall shall have been 


THE LORD JESUS CHRIST. 463 


clean wrought out of creation, and the handiwork of God 
shall stand sinless and glorious for ever. The name Jesus, 
therefore, carries us far beyond anything which we behold 
as yet accomplished, into the future everlasting condition of 
God’s works, when everything that defileth and maketh a lie 
shall be purged off into the second death of the lake which 
burneth with fire and brimstone for ever, and the heavens 
and earth which now are defiled and obscure shall with all 
their inhabitants, in the estate of infallible blessedness, ac- 
knowledge Jehovah their Creator to be also Jehovah their 
Saviour. Save upon that human nature which He assumed, 
I may say that the virtue and power of the name Jesus hath 
not yet been exhibited. In this kind the whole work has 
been finished by the wonderful act of taking our nature, 
and going down with it into the region, first, of all tempta- 
tion, and next of the grave or all corruption, and thence 
fetching it up and seating it in the place of all honor and 
all blessedness. This exaltation which will yet be done upon 
all the chosen ones of God, and upon all that dependeth 
from them in their several degrees, hath as yet been only 
partially done upon any one of the saints, whose souls, 
though they be in glory, have left their bodies under the cor- » 
ruption of the grave—sad memorial of their sinfulness ! 
And we who being now in the body have the first fruits of 
the Spirit, do nevertheless groan within ourselves, waiting 
for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body: and 
all the creatures groan and travail together under bondage, 
waiting for that same glorious manifestation of the sons of 
God. And if so be that the name Jesus implies salvation 
from that curse and thraldom of sin under which the creation 
is now fallen, who will say that the name will be acquitted 
of its full blessedness until the bodies of the saints be 
brought up from their graves, and the world delivered from 
the headship of Satan and the power of death? Now as 
His being born of the virgin, and manifested as the seed of 


464 EDWARD IRVING. 


David, gave the beginning to the great work of our salva- 
tion, considered as shut up and represented in His human 
nature; and as the resurrection of His body from the dead 
gave the beginning to the work of conveying and communi- 
cating the same salvation to an elect few individuals in the 
gift of the Holy Ghost; even so His work of saving the 
Jewish nation from the hand of all their enemies will be the 
beginning of the work of delivering mankind from the do- 
minion of Satan, and His being brought again into the 
world shall be the signal for delivering the bodies of His | 
Church from the power of the grave. After which it only 
remaineth that by the judgment He should deliver all things 
created from the power of death; and then is the glorious 
name of Jesus, or Jah the Saviour, acquitted of its most 
precious burden. 

Thus have I endeavored, dear brethren, to set forth unto 
you the meaning of the name Jesus, which the Godhead 
assumed in the act of taking unto itself the substance of the 
fallen creature, in order to save what of the fallen creatures 
it pleased Him to save. And now I would, by the grace of 
God, endeavor to draw out from what hath been said certain 
conclusions of doctrine and practical inferences, which the 
Lord may be pleased to bless unto your edification in know- 
ledge, in faith, and in new obedience. 

First, then, it is manifest from God’s revealing himself as 
Jesus, or the Saviour, that the creatures are in a state of 
condemnation and of perdition; otherwise what meaning were 
there in revealing himself as their Saviour? As the name 
Elohim, or God the Almighty One, implies that every other 
one is not almighty, but of a limited power and subordinate 
place; and as the name Jehovah, or the Unchangeable One, 
implieth that all other beings are to undergo change and 
alteration according to His will; so doth the name Jesus, or 
Saviour, imply that all other beings whatsoever are in a 
state of condemnation and misery, from under which they 


THE 2h Ds J ES 8 vO nok IS: T, 465 


need to be saved. And whence cometh this state of misery 
and perdition is distinctly and directly revealed in the act 
of giving unto Him the name,—‘“‘ Thou shalt call his name 
Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins.” Be it 
known unto you, therefore, brethren, and of this be ye stead- 
fastly assured, that our sins have divided between us and 
God, and brought us under the dominion of death and the 
grave, and the resurrection unto judgment, and the sentence 
of the second death, which nothing can avert, from which 
nothing can deliver and save us, but trust upon the name 
of Jesus, and believing in God as the only Saviour from our 
sins. Put away, therefore, from amongst you all confidence 
which is elsewhere rested than upon the name of Jesus, and 
otherwise proceedeth than through faith in the incarnation, 
and obedience, and death, and burial of the Lord Jesus 
Christ. Be ye assured, that if God spared not His own 
Son when He had assumed our fallen nature, and become a 
partaker of flesh and blood with the rest of the brethren, 
that He will not spare us who have no divine community of 
substance with the Father, who have no eternal generation 
by the Father, who have no inhabitation of the Father’s 
bosom, and participation of his counsel, to interest the 
Father for our sakes; and if these being present in Jesus — 
did not avert the sword of God from smiting the Shepherd, 
oh, how think you that we rebellious creatures can ever 
escape if we should neglect such great salvation! If over 
Him the law laid its line of righteousness, and its plumb- 
line of judgment, exacting obedience unto every jot and 
tittle of its holy, just, and good commandments, shall it, oh, 
can it, be relaxed unto such as we are! If the holiness of 
God was not prevented from its action and infliction upon 
Him who was the manifestation of His love, and grace, and 
glory, how shall it, how can it be silent, be inactive, be changed 
towards us, who are manifestations of rebellion, ingratitude, 
unfruitfulness, and sin! Say then, believe then, know then, 
2c 


466 EDWARD IRVING. 


and be assured that in the way of God’s holiness and justice, 
in the way of His law and. our obedience thereto, there is- 
nothing but condemnation and perdition for ever and for 
ever. Acknowledge this, and have no confidence in the 
flesh, or in the powers of the natural man. Say, “I am 
indeed a sinner, and the chief of sinners; my righteous- 
nesses are as filthy rags; in all things I come short of the 
glory of God; in my best estate Iam but vanity. I have 
been feeding upon the east wind while I trusted in my own 
works; and I shall continue to feed on the east wind, be 
parched, be blighted, be shrivelled up like the tree of the 
wilderness over which the east wind bloweth, so long as I 
shall look for any righteousness or hope for any salvation 
through anything which I can do for myself, or which others 
can do for me. I am a condemned man; I can ask no 
second trial; my mouth is shut, my doom is written, my 
fate is sealed.’’ This, even this, no less, is what I require 
of you to believe, and to feel as the just conclusion from the 
name of Jesus, which the eternal revealer of God, even 
the Son, hath taken unto Himself under the gospel dispen- 
sation. 

And now, in the second place, I call upon you to believe 
aud to feel, that unto a world thus sealed and set apart unto 
condemnation God hath revealed himself as a Saviour. As 
He did reveal himself its Creator, so now revealeth He him- 
self its Saviour; and this message of reconciliation hath 
He committed unto me His minister to make known unto 
you all, that albeit ye are guilty before Him, and have no 
plea in your mouth, He is of such wondrous grace, and 
hath for the creatures of His hand such pitiful love and 
tender compassion, being a Sovereign withal whom no one can 
question, saying, “‘ What doest Thou?” that He hath given 
His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him 
might not perish, but have everlasting life; that He is in 
Jesus Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not impu- 


THE LORD JESUS CHRIST. 467 


ting unto men their trespasses. Believe, then, though all 
have sinned and come short of the glory of God, you are 
justified “freely by His grace through the redemption that 
is in Christ Jesus ; whom God hath set forth to be a propitia- 
tion through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness 
for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbear- 
ance of God; to declare, I say, at this time His righteous- 
ness, that He might ‘be just, and the justifier of him that 
believeth in Jesus.”” As in my former conclusion of doc- 
trine and practice I did entreat you to be separate from all 
creature trust, and to regard the whole creation of God as 
under the bondage of sin and death, lying in the wicked 
one; so now do I entreat and invoke you to look unto Jesus, 
the Author and the Finisher of your faith. Receive the 
grace of God by Him preached, and from Him proceeding 
forth. Receive the pardon of your guilt written in His 
blood and sealed with the key of David, which openeth and 
no man shutteth, which shutteth and no man openeth. As 
the prisoner no more doubteth when the reprieve of his sove- 
reign cometh under the great seal of the kingdom by the 
hands of the king’s proper messenger ; so doubt ye no more, 
let the world doubt no more after it hath received the good ” 
news of salvation by the Son of God, to this very end ap- 
pointed by His name Jesus, and for the assurance of this 
very thing constituted by His union, His inseparable and 
indivisible union with the nature of the creatures which had 
been imprisoned under the sentence of the law of the Jeho- 
vah King, the Unchangeable One. Ah! is it not as if to 
some poor, doubting, disbelieving woman under sentence of 
death, the king’s son, that he might give her fast assurance 
and chase away her despair, should wed himself to her, join 
himself as one, that her poor fainting heart might be reas- 
sured? So did Christ, in order to convince the children of 
mother Eve, who in their mother’s transgression had trans- 
gressed, and in their mother’s sentence had been doomed, 


468 EDWARD IRVING. 


come and wed himself, His eternal divinity, unto the seed 
of mother Eve, that the family, all the family, might truly 
_ know and feel assured that they had found grace in the sight 
of God, and were beloved because He is Love, and can love 
what in itself is‘all unlovely. And now I ask you to believe 
that you are saved in Christ; to rejoice and hold up your 
heads, because you are redeemed; to go on and rejoice, and 
prosper, and do exploits under that banner of salvation 
which He hath displayed because of the truth. 

And now, finally, with respect to the manner of conveying 
this salvation which He wrought out by His obedience unto 
the death, we have to observe that it is not by giving out of 
himself unto another, but by bringing that other into him- 
self that the communication of the blessedness proceedeth. 
To give unto us an existence out of himself is the work of 
creation. ‘To bring the thing created into union, into one- 
ness with himself, is the work of redemption, which there- 
fore proceeded by joining unto himself, by taking up into 
hypostatical union with himself the nature of man. And 
every one who is redeemed is in like manner taken up into 
union with His human nature, so as to be one with Him as 
He is one with the Father. But this union of the redeemed 
ones unto Christ is not of the same kind as the union of His 
human nature unto His divine. The human nature of Christ 
is a part of His personal, and shall continue so for ever ; 
but not so is it with His saved ones, who are separate per- 
sons from Christ, though of the same substance with His 
human nature unto which they are consubstantiated by the 
Holy Ghost proceeding from Him to this very end of bring- 
ing them into union with Him, just as the seed of plants 
hath power to assimilate unto itself the elemental substances 
on which it feeds, and so to produce many seeds and many 
plants of the like kind. Or to preserve our similitude still 
more correct, as the one stem of the vine hath power 
through the appropriation unto itself of elemental matters 


THREOAEORD, FESUS CHRIST. 469 


to put forth many branches, whereon grow the clusters of 
ripe fruit; so doth Christ the true vine of the Father’s 
planting, of the Father’s dressing, by operation of the Holy 
_ Spirit upon the creature produce many separate persons in 
His own likeness, many branches growing out of and unto 
himself. In their union with Him standeth their fertility, 
and being separated from Him they are good for nothing 
but to be cast out and trodden under the foot of men. The 
Holy Spirit, therefore, which proceedeth from Christ doth 
unite us unto Christ, and enable us to abide in Him,—doth 
not unite us unto the Godhead of the Son, but doth unite 
us to the manhood of Christ. And the completeness -of the 
saved ones will be accomplished at His coming; after which, 
if I err not, the manner of this salvation will somewhat 
change. For I reckon there is a dignity and a closeness in 
the union between Christ and His elect or bridal Church 
which now is suffering with Him and for Him, that there is 
not between Him and the numerous hosts which shall come 
and be joined unto Him in the age to come, of which He is 
declared to be the Father; whereas of the Church that now 
is, He is the husband. But still as the children are of the 
same substance with their parents, so shall the innumerable | 
company of the saints in the age to come be taken out of 
the stock of an evil nature subject unto death, and brought 
into the stock of a redeemed nature which hath triumphed 
over death; and so all the savéd ones are saved by being 
taken out of the sinful mass and consubstantiated with that 
atom, so to speak, of redeemed substance which the Son 
joined unto himself, and which the Father gave to have life 
in itself. And as Christ the great quickener, the eternal 
life manifested, doth thus draw unto himself those whom the 
Father giveth Him out of that separateness and wickedness in 
which they are by nature, and so doth save them in himself, 
~ not out of himself; even in like manner do these same saved 


470 EDWARD IRVING. 


ones draw up along with them this world which was made 
for man, with its sun, and moon, and stars, and fish and fly- 
ing fowl, and living creatures, to the utter exclusion of 
death and extinction of sin and misery; and then the work 
of creation will appear to have been but the rudiments of 
and preparation for the work of redemption by the mani- 
festation of Jehovah under the name of Jesus. 

And now, brethren, before I close, allow me to express, 
in a few words, the heartfelt satisfaction with which I return 
to my charge over your souls, and to the labors of the min- 
istry in this city. The tidings which I received from time 
to time of your love and fellowship in the Lord, of your 
constancy in the duties of public worship, did afford me 
great consolation in my absence; and a good report con- 
cerning you is, I may say, spread abroad amongst the 
churches. In which let us rejoice together. Let us remark 
with gratitude the hand of God in sending amongst ys min- 
isters of good and honorable report, in whose mouth the 
substance of the doctrine which I teach hath been con- 
firmed. And now let us proceed with renewed confidence 
in the great Head of the Church, to hold up in this city a 
banner for the truth. Let us go on unto perfection, and 
not stop until we reach the stature ‘of a perfect man in 
Christ. You may desire naturally to know what reception 
the word which I preached met with in our native land and 
in our mother Church. Everywhere, I may truly say, the 
people heard me gladly, and from the ministers of the gospel 
I received much brotherly kindness ; for all which I return 
thanks this day to the great Head of the Church. I preached 
unto them the coming of the Lord in judgment, little think- 
ing that I should witness any act of His judgment; but so 
it was, the Lord did lift up His hand and make a breach in 
the midst of the congregation. It is a fearful thing, let me 
tell you, brethren, to witness such an awful sight; but oh, ~ 


THEeLORD JESUS*CHRIST. 471 


if those days of judgment and of visitation be so near at 
hand, what sights more awful await our eyes! If those days 
‘be at hand concerning which it is said, that unless they were 
shortened no flesh should be saved, oh, then, what death, 
what destruction, what ruin, may we not be prepared to see! 
Enter, oh enter, then, into your chambers, ye people of the 
Lord, and shut your doors and hide yourselves as it were for 
a little moment until the indignation be overpast. Have I 
not preached unto you this day the name of Jesus, that Rock 
of refuge and high tower of salvation? Flee unto Him 
speedily, speedily, who hath been the dwelling-place of His 
people in all generations. Everything shall change but Je- 
hovah, everything shall perish which is not united unto 
Jehovah the Saviour. There is no other name given under 
heaven whereby men must be saved but the name of Jesus; 
and every one who knoweth His name will put his trust in 
Him. ‘Trust ye in the Lord for ever, for in the Lord Jeho- 
vah is everlasting strength. Amen and amen. 


ERODE 
ON CHRISTIAN LOVE. 


LATIMER. 

{[Hucu Latimer was a sincere, bold, and blunt minister of Christ, 
apt in homely yet spirited figures of speech, and quick to rebuke the 
crying evils of his generation. The fear of man or despotic king 
never kept back a word of his sharp censure. Born at Thurcaston, 
in Leicestershire, about 1491, he graduated at eighteen from Cam- 
bridge. ‘‘I was as obstinate a papist as any in England,” he relates 
of his early manhood; yet he became an inflexible reformer in his 
thirty-first year. Henry VIII. made him Bishop of Worcester in 
1535; but Latimer was forced by conscience to resign four years later. 
In the brief reign of good Edward VI., he delighted the common peo- 
ple by re-entering the pulpit. On the accession of ‘bloody Mary,” 
he was condemned as a heretic, and burned at the stake with Bishop 
Ridley, opposite Baliol College, Oxford, October 16th 1555. His last 
and prophetic words were: ‘ Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and 
play the man. We shall this day light such a candle, by God’s grace, 
in England, as I trust shall never be put out. O Father of heaven, 
receive my soul!’’? His works, mainly Sermons, are published by the 
‘Parker Society,’ and also in the series of ‘‘ British Reformers.” 
This discourse was preached three years before his death. ] 


“ This is my commandment, that ye love one another, as I have loved 
you.”’—John xy. 12. 


SEEING the time is so far spent, we will take no more in 
hand at this time, than this one sentence; for it will be 
enough for us to consider this well, and to bear it away with | 
us. ‘This I command unto you, that ye love one another.” 
Our Saviour himself spake these words at his last supper: 
it was the last sermon that he made unto his disciples before 
his departure; it is a very long sermon. For our Saviour, 
like as one that knows he shall die shortly, is desirous to 
spend that little time that he has with his friends, in exhort- 

(472) 


ON CHRISTIAN LOVE. 473 


ing and instructing them how they should lead their lives. 
Now among other things that he commanded, this was one: 
‘This I command unto you, that ye love one another.”’ The 
English expresses as though it were but one, ‘ This is my 
commandment.’ I examined the Greek, where it is in the 
plural number, and very well; for there are many things 
that pertain to a Christian man, and yet all those things are 
contained in this one thing, that is, Love. He lappeth up 
all things in love. 

Our whole duty is contained in these words, ‘“ Love toge- 
ther.” Therefore St. Paul saith, ‘‘ He that loveth another, 
fulfilleth the whole law;’’ so it appeareth that all things are 
contained in this word Love. ‘This love is a precious thing ; 
our Saviour saith, ‘‘ By this shall all men know that ye are. 
my disciples, if ye shall love one another.” 

So Christ makes love his cognisance, his badge, his oe 
Like as every lord commonly gives a certain livery to his 
servants, whereby they may be known that they pertain unto 
him; and so we say, yonder is this lord’s servants, because 
they wear his livery: so our Saviour, who is the Lord above 
all lords, would have his servants known by their liveries 
and badge, which badge is love alone. Whosoever now is, 
endued with love and charity, is his servant; him we may 
call Christ’s servant ; for love is the token whereby you may 
know that such a servant pertaineth to Christ; so that 
charity may be called the very livery of Christ. He that 
hath charity is Christ’s servant: he that hath not charity, 
is the servant of the devil. For as Christ’s livery is love 
and charity, so the devil’s livery is hatred, malice, and 
discord. 

But I think the devil has a great many more servants 
than Christ has; for there are a great many more in his 
livery than in Christ’s livery; there are but very few who 
are endued with Christ’s livery; with love and charity, gen- 
tleness and meekness of spirit; but there are a great num- 


474 HUGH LATIMER. 


ber that bear hatred and malice in their hearts, that are 
proud, stout, and lofty; therefore the number of the devil’s 
servants is greater than the number of Christ’s servants. 

Now St. Paul shows how needful this love is. I speak 
not of carnal love, which is only animal affection; but of 
this charitable love which is so necessary, that when a man 
hath it, without all other things it will suffice him. Again, 
if a man have all other things and lacketh that love, it will 
not help him, it is all vain and lost. St. Paul used it so: 
“Though I speak with tongues of men and angels, and yet 
had no love, I were even as sounding brass, or as a tinkling 
cymbal. And though I could prophesy and understand all 
secrets and all knowledge; yea, if I had all faith, so that I 
could move mountains out of their places, and yet had no 
love, I were nothing. And though I bestowed all my goods 
to feed the poor, and though I gave my body even that I 
were burned, and yet had no love, it profiteth me nothing.” 
(1 Cor. xiii.) These are godly gifts, yet St. Paul calls 
them nothing when a man hath them without charity ; which 
is a great commendation, and shows the great need of love, 
insomuch that all other virtues are in vain when this love is 
absent. And there have been some who thought that St. 
Paul spake against the dignity of faith ; but you must un- 
derstand that St. Paul speaks here not of the justifying 
faith, wherewith we receive everlasting life, but he under- 
stands by this word faith, the gift to do miracles, to remove 
hills; of such a faith he speaks. This I say to confirm this 
proposition. Faith only justifieth: this proposition is most 
true and certain. And St. Paul speaks not here of this 
lively justifying faith; for this right faith is not without 
love, for love cometh and floweth out of faith, love is a child 
of faith; for no man can love except he believe, so that 
they have two several offices, they themselves being insepa- 
rable. 

St. Paul has an expression in the 18th chapter of the 


ON CHRISTIAN LOVE. 475 


first of the Corinthians, which, according to the outward 
letter, seems much to the dispraise of this faith, and to the 
praise of love; these are his words, ‘‘Now abideth faith, 
hope, and love, even these three; but the chiefest of these 
is love.’ ‘There are some learned men, who expound the 
greatness of which St. Paul speaketh here, as if meant for 
eternity. For when we come to God, then we believe no 
more, but rather see with our eyes face to face how he is; 
yet for all that, love remains still; so that love may be 
called the chiefest, because she endureth for ever. And 
though she is the chiefest, yet we must not attribute unto 
her the office which pertains unto faith only. Like as I 
cannot say, the mayor of Stamford must make me a pair 
of shoes because he is a greater man than the shoemaker is ; 
for the mayor, though he is the greater man, yet it is not 
his office to make shoes; so though love be greater, yet it is 
not her office to save. Thus much I thought good to-say 
against those who fight against the truth. 

Now, when we would know who are in Christ’s livery or 
not, we must learn it of St. Paul, who most evidently de- 
scribed charity, which is the very livery, saying, ‘‘ Love is 
patient, she suffereth long.’’ Now whosoever fumeth and is 
angry, he is out of this livery: therefore let us remember 
that we do not cast away the livery of Christ our master. 
When we are in sickness or any manner of adversities, our 
duty is to be patient, to suffer willingly, and to call upon 
him for aid, help, and comfort; for without him we are mot 
able to abide any tribulation. Therefore we must call upon 
God, he has promised to help: therefore let me not think him 
to be false or untrue in his promises, for we cannot dishonor 
God more than by not believing or trusting in him. There- 
fore let us beware above all things of dishonoring God; and 
so we must be patient, trusting and most certainly believing 
that he will deliver us when it seems good to him, who knows 
the time better than we ourselves. 


476 HUGH LATIMER. 


“ Charity is gentle, friendly, and loving; she envieth not.” 
They that envy their neighbor’s profit when it goes well 
with him, such fellows are out of their liveries, and so out 
of the service of God; for to be envious is to be the servant 
of the devil. 

‘Love doth not frowardly, she is not a provoker ;” as 
there are some men who will provoke their neighbor so far 
that it is very hard for them to be in charity with them ; but 
we must wrestle with our affections; we must strive and see 
that we keep this livery of Christ our master; for ‘the 
devil goeth about as a roaring lion seeking to take us at a 
vantage,’ to bring us out of our liveries, and to take from 
us the knot of love and charity. 

‘¢ Love swelleth not, is not puffed up ;” but there are many 
swellers now-a-days, they are so high, so lofty, insomuch 
that they despise and contemn all others: all such persons 
are under the governance of the devil. God rules not them 
with his good Spirit; the evil spirit has occupied their hearts 
and possessed them. 

‘“‘She doth not dishonestly ; she seeketh not her own; she 
doth all things to the commodity of her neighbors.” A 
charitable man will not promote himself with the damage of 
his neighbor. They that seek only their own advantage, 
forgetting their neighbors, they are not of God, they have 
not his livery. Further, ‘‘ charity is not provoked to anger ; 
she thinketh not evil.”’” We ought not to think evil of our 
neighbor, as long as we see not open wickedness; for it is 
written, “‘ You shall not judge;” we should not take upon 
us to condemn: our neighbor. And surely the condemners 
of other men’s works are not in the livery of Christ. Christ 
hateth them. 

‘“‘She rejoiceth not in iniquity ;’’ she loveth equity and 
godliness. And again, she is sorry to hear of falsehood, of 
stealing, or such like, which wickedness is now at this time 
commonly used. ‘There never was such falsehood among 


ON CHRISTIAN LOVE, ATT 


Christian men as there is now, at this time; truly I think, 
and they that have experience report it so, that among the 
very Infidels and Turks there is more fidelity and upright- 
ness than among Christian men. For no man setteth any- 
thing by his promise, yea, and writings will not serve with 
some, they are so shameless that they dare deny their own 
handwriting: but, I pray you, are those false fellows in the 
livery of Christ? Have they his cognisance? No, no; 
they have the badge of the devil, with whom they shall be 
damned world without end, except they amend and leave 
their wickedness. 

‘She suffereth all things; she believeth all things.” It 
is a great matter that should make us to be grieved with our 
neighbor; we should be patient when our neighbor doth 
wrong, we should admonish him of his folly, earnestly de- 
siring him to leave his wickedness, showing the danger that 
follows, namely, everlasting damnation. In such wise we 
should study to amend our neighbor, and not to hate him or 
do him a foul turn again, but rather charitably study to 
amend him: whosoever now does so, he has the livery and 
cognisance of Christ, he shall be known at the last day for 
his servant. 

‘Love believeth all things:” it appears daily that te 
who are charitable and friendly are most deceived; because 
they think well of every man, they believe every man, they 
trust their words, and therefore are most deceived in this 
world, among the children of the devil. These and such 
like things are the tokens of the right and godly love: there- 
fore they that have this love are soon known, for this love 
cannot be hid in corners, she has her operation: therefore 
all that have her are well enough, though they have no other 
gifts besides her. Again, they that lack her, though they 
have many other gifts besides, yet is it to no other purpose, 
it does them no good: for when we shall come at the great 
day before him, not having this livery (that is love) with us, 


478 HUGH LATIMER, 


then we are lost; he will not take us for his servants, be- 
cause we have not his cognisanae. But if we have this 
livery, if we wear his cognisance here in this world; that is, 
if we love our neighbor, help him in his distress, are chari- 
table, loving, and friendly unto him, then we shall be known 
at the last day: but if we be uncharitable towards our 
neighbor, hate him, seek our own advantage with his dam- 
age, then we shall be rejected of Christ and so damned world 
without end. 

Our Saviour saith here in this gospel, ‘I command you 
these things:’’ he speaketh in the plural number, and lap- 
peth it up in one thing, which is, that we should love one 
another, much like St. Paul’s saying in the thirteenth to 
the Romans, ‘Owe nothing to any man, but to love one 
another.”’ Here St. Paul lappeth up all things together, 
signifying unto us, that love is the consummation of the law; 
for this commandment, ‘‘ Thou shalt not commit adultery,” 
is contained in this law of love: for he that loveth God will 
not break wedlock, because wedlock breaking is a dishonor- 
ing of God and a serving of the devil. ‘Thou shalt not 
kill: he that loveth will not kill, he will do no harm. 
‘Thou shalt not steal;’’ he that loveth his neighbor as him- 
self, will not take away his goods. I had of late occasion 
to speak of picking and stealing, where I showed unto you 
the danger wherein they are that steal their neighbors’ goods 
from them, but I hear nothing yet of restitution. Sirs, I 
tell you, except restitution is made, look for no salvation. 
And it is a miserable and heinous thing to consider that we 
are so blinded with this world, that rather than we would 
make restitution, we will sell unto the devil our souls which 
are bought with the blood of our Saviour Christ. What 
can be done more to the dishonoring of Christ, than to cast 
our souls away to the devil for the value of a little money ?— 
the soul which he has bought with his painful passion and 
death! But I tell you those that will do so, and that will not 


ON CHRISTIAN LOVE. 479 


make restitution when they have done wrong, or have taken 
away their neighbor's goods, they are not in the livery of 
Christ, they are not his servants; let them go as they will 
in this world, yet for all that they are foul and filthy enough 
before God; they stink before his face; and therefore they 
shall be cast from his presence into everlasting fire; this 
shall be all their good cheer that they shall have, because 
they have not the livery of Christ, nor his cognisance, which 
is love. They remember not that Christ commanded us, 
saying, ‘This I command you, that ye love one another.” 
This is Christ’s commandment. Moses, the great prophet 
of God, gave many laws, but he gave not the Spirit to fulfil 
the same laws: but Christ gave this law, and promised unto 
us, that when we call upon him he will give us his Holy 
Ghost, who shall make us able to fulfil his laws, though not 
so perfectly as the law requires; but yet to the contentation 
of God, and to the protection of our faith: for as long as 
we are in this world, we can do nothing as we ought to do, 
because our flesh leadeth us, which is ever bent against the 
law of God; yet our works which we do ure well taken for 
Christ’s sake, and God will reward them in heaven. 

Therefore our Saviour saith, ‘my yoke is easy, and my. 
burden is light,’’ because he helpeth to bear them; else in- 
deed we should not be able to bear them. And in another 
place he saith, ‘‘his commandments are not heavy ;” they 
are heavy to our flesh, but being qualified with the Spirit of 
God, to the faithful which believe in Christ, to them, I say, 
they are not heavy; for though their doings are not perfect, 
yet they are well taken for Christ’s sake. 

You must not be offended because the Scripture commends 
love so highly, for he that commends the daughter, com- 
mends the mother; for love is the daughter, and. faith is the 
mother: love floweth out of faith; where faith is, there is 
love; but yet we must consider their offices, faith is the hand 
wherewith we take hold on everlasting life. 


480 HUGH LATIMER. 


Now let us enter into ourselves, and examine our own 
hearts, whether we are in the livery of God, or not: and 
when we find ourselves to be out of this livery, let us repent 
and amend our lives, so that we may come again to the 
favor of God, and spend our time in this world to his honor 
and glory, forgiving our neighbors all such things as they 
have done against us. 

And now to make an end: mark here who gave this pre- 
cept of love—Christ our Saviour himself. When and at 
what time? At his departing, when he should suffer death. 
Therefore these words ought the more to be regarded, seeing 
he himself spake them at his last departing from us. May 
God of his mercy give us grace so to walk here in this world, 
charitably and friendly one with another, that we may attain 
the joy which God hath prepared for all those that love 
him. Amen. 


DIAG ip 
FURY NOT IN GOD. 


CHALMERS. 

[A philosopher, theologian, pulpit orator, and pastor—gifted, ear- 
nest, and faithful to a tender conscience in each of these responsible 
spheres—such was the life-character of Tuomas Cuatmers, D.D., 
LL. D., D.C. L. His career was full of godly labors for the good of 
humanity. Born at Anstruther, in Fifeshire, Scotland, March 17th 
1780, and educated at St. Andrew’s, he was licensed a minister of the 
Church of Scotland in his nineteenth year. His true conversion to 
God, however, he himself assigns to the year 1810. An excellent -. 
article on the ‘‘ Evidences of Christianity,’ prepared for the Edinburgh 
Encyclopedia, and a series of glowing ‘‘ Astronomical Discourses,” 
are the most popular of his writings, which extend to thirty volumes. 
As pastor over a parish of two thousand poor families in Glasgow, he 
organized it into twenty-five districts with supervisors, established 
week-day and Sunday schools, and faithfully toiled for their spiritual 
and bodily necessities. Five years were given to the professorship of 
Moral Philosophy, and fifteen to that of Theology, in the University 
of Edinburgh. In 1843 Dr. Chalmers was a leader of the Evangelical | 
party which, for conscience’ sake, seceded to found the Free Church, 
and he did much for its rapid establishment. He died in Edinburgh, 
May 30th 1847. Memoirs of his life were written by Dr. Hanna and 
Dr. Wayland.. Four volumes of his Sermons are published. One is 
illustrative of different stages of his ministry ; and from that is selected 
the following masterpiece—a favorite of Dr. Chalmers, and last preached 
a year before his death. | 


-“ Fury is not in me: who would set the briers and thorns against me 
in battle? I would go through them, I would burn them together. Or 
let him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me; and 
he shall make peace with me.”’—Isaiah xxvii. 4-5. 


THERE are three distinct lessons in this text. The first, 
that fury is not in God: the second, that He does not want 
to glorify Himself by the death of sinners—‘‘ Who would 

16 2H (481) 


482 THOMAS CHALMERS. 


set the thorns and briers against me in battle?” the third, 
the invitation—“ Take hold of my strength, that you may 
make peace with me; and you shall make peace with me.” 
I. First, then, Fury is not in God. But how can this be? 
is not fury one manifestation of His essential attributes? do 
we not repeatedly read of His fury—of Jerusalem being full 
of the fury of the Lord—of God casting the fury of His 
wrath upon the world—of Him rendering His anger upon 
His enemies with fury—of Him accomplishing his fury upon 
Zion—of Him causing His fury to rest on the bloody and 
devoted city? We are not therefore to think that fury is 
banished altogether from God’s administration. There are 
times and occasions when this fury is discharged upon the 
objects of it; and there must be other times and other occa- 
sions when there is no fury in Him. Now, what is the 
occasion upon which He disclaims all fury in our text? He 
is inviting men to reconciliation; He is calling upon them 
to make peace; and He is assuring them, that if they will 
only take hold of His strength, they shall make peace with 
Him. In the preceding verses He speaks of a vineyard ; 
and in the act of inviting people to lay hold of His strength, 
He is in fact inviting those who are without the limits of the 
vineyard to enter in. Fury will be discharged on those who | 
reject the invitation. But we cannot say that there is any 
exercise of fury in God at the time of giving the invitation. 
There is the most visible and direct contrary. There is a 
longing desire after you. There is a wish to save you from 
that day in which the fury of a rejected Saviour will be 
spread abroad over all who have despised Him. The tone 
of invitation is not a tone of anger—it is a tone of tender- 
ness. ‘The look which accompanies the invitation is not a 
look of wrath—it is a look of affection. There may be a 
time, there may be an occasion, when the fury of God will 
be put forth on the men who have held out against Him, and 
turned them away in infidelity and contempt from’ His be- 


FURY NOTIN GOD. 483 


seeching voice; but at the time that He is lifting this voice 
—at the time that He is sending messengers over the face 
of the earth to circulate it among the habitations of men— 
at the time particularly among ourselves, when in our own 
place and our own day Bibles are within the reach of every 
family, and ministers in every pulpit are sounding forth the 
overtures of the gospel throughout the land—surely at such 
a time and upon such an occasion, it may well be said of God 
to all who are now seeking His face and favor, that there is 
no fury in Him. 

It ts just as in the parable of the marriage feast: many 
rejected the invitation which the king gave to it—for which 
he was wroth with them, and sent forth his armies and 
destroyed them, and burned up their city. On that occasion 
there was fury in the king, and on the like occasion will 
there be fury in God. But well can He say at the time 
when He is now giving the invitation—there is no fury in 
Me. There is kindness—a desire for peace and friendship— 
a longing earnestness to make up the quarrel which now 
subsists between the Lawgiver in heaven, and His yet im- 
penitent and unreconciled creatures. 

This very process was all gone through at and before the. 
destruction of Jerusalem. It rejected the warnings and in- 
vitations of the Saviour, and at length experienced His fury. 
But there was no fury at the time of His giving the invita- 
tions. The tone of our Saviour’s voice when He uttered— 
‘“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem,’’ was not the tone of a vindictive 
and irritated fury. There was compassion in it—a warning 
and pleading earnestness that they would mind the things 
which belong to their peace; and at that time when He 
would willingly have gathered them as a hen gathereth her 
chickens under her wings—then may it well be said that 
there was no fury in the Son of God, no fury in God. 

Let us make the application to ourselves in the present 
day. On the last day there will be a tremendous discharge 


484 THOMAS CHALMERS. 


of fury. That wrath which sinners are now doing so much 
to treasure up will all be poured forth on them. The season 
of God’s mercy will then have come to an end; and after 
the sound of the last trumpet, there will never more be heard 
the sounding call of reconciliation. Oh, my brethren, that 
God who is grieved and who is angry with sinners every day, 
will in the last day pour it all forth in one mighty torrent 
on the heads of the impenitent. It is now gathering and 
accumulating in a storehouse of vengeance; and at the 
awful point in the successive history of nature and provi- 
dence, when time shall be no more, will the door of this 
storehouse be opened, that the fury of the Lord may break 
loose upon the guilty, and accomplish upon them the weight 
and the terror of all His threatenings. You misunderstand 
the text, then, my brethren, if you infer from it that fury 
has no place in the history or methods of God’s administra- 
tion. It has its time and its occasion—and the very greatest 
display of it is yet to come, when the earth shall be burned 
up, and the heavens shall be dissolved, and the elements 
shall melt with fervent heat, and the Lord Jesus shall be - 
revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming 
fire, taking vengeance on those who know not God, and obey 
not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; and they shall be 
punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of 
the Lord, and from the glory of His power. It makes one 
shudder seriously to think that there may be some here 
present whom this devouring torrent of wrath shall sweep 
away; some here present who will be drawn into the whirl 
of destruction, and forced to take their descending way 
through the mouth of that pit where the worm dieth not, 
and the fire is not quenched ; some here present who so far 
from experiencing in their own persons that there is no fury 
in God, will find that throughout the dreary extent of one 
hopeless and endless and unmitigated eternity, it is the only 
attribute of His they have to do with. But hear me, hear 


FURY NOT IN GOD. 485 


me ere you have taken your bed in hell; hear me, ere that 
prison door be shut upon you which is never, never again to 
be opened ! hear me, hear me, ere the great day of the revela- 
tion of God’s wrath comes round, and there shall be a total 
breaking up of that system of things which looks at present 
so stable and so unalterable! On that awful day I might 
not be able to take up the text and say—that there is no 
fury in God. But, oh! hear me, for your lives hear me— 
on this day I can say it. From the place where I now stand 
I can throw abroad amongst you the wide announcement— 
that there is no fury in God; and there is not one of you 
into whose heart this announcement may not enter, and wel- 
come will you be to strike with your beseeching God a league 
of peace and of friendship that shall never be broken asunder. 
Surely when I am busy at my delegated employment of 
holding out the language of entreaty, and of sounding in 
your ears the tidings of gladness, and of inviting you to 
enter into the vineyard of God—surely at the time when 
the messenger of the gospel is thus executing the commis- 
sion wherewith he is charged and warranted, he may well 
say—that there is no fury in God. Surely at the time when 
the Son of God is inviting you to kiss Him and to enter into , 
reconciliation, there is neither the feeling nor the exercise 
of fury. It is only if you refuse, and if you persist in 
refusing, and if you suffer all these calls and entreaties to 
be lost upon you—it is only then that God will execute His 
fury, and put forth the power of His anger. And therefore 
He says to us, “Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and ye 
perish from the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little.” 
Such, then, is the interesting point of time at which you 
stand. There is no fury in God at the very time that He is 
inviting you to flee from it. He is sending forth no blasting 
influence upon the fig-tree, even though hitherto it had borne 
no fruit, and been a mere cumberer of the ground, when He 
says, we shall let it alone for another year, and dig it, and 


486 THOMAS CHALMERS. 


dress it, and if it bear fruit, well; and if not, then let it be 
afterwards cut down. Now, my brethren, you are all in 
the situation of this fig-tree; you are for the present let 
alone; God has purposes of kindness towards every one of 
you; and as one of His ministers I can now say to you all— 
that there is no fury in Him. Now when the spiritual hus- 
bandman is trying to soften your hearts, he is warranted to 
make a full use of the argument of my text—that there is 
no fury in God. Now that the ambassador of Christ is ply- 
ing you with the offers of grace and of strength to renew 
and to make you fruitful, he is surely charged with matter 
of far different import from wrath and threatening and ven- 
geance. Qh! let not all this spiritual husbandry turn out 
to be unavailing; let not the offer be made now, and no fruit 
appear afterwards; let not yours be the fate of the barren 
and unfruitful fig-tree. The day of the fury of the Lord is 
approaching. ‘The burning up of this earth and the passing 
away of these heavens is an event in the history of God’s 
administration to which we are continually drawing nearer ; 
and on that day when the whole of universal nature shall 
be turned into a heap of ruins, and we shall see the gleam 
of a mighty conflagration, and shall hear the noise of the 
framework of creation rending into fragments, and a cry 
shall be raised from a despairing multitude out of the men 
of all generations, who have just awoke from their resting- 
places—and amid all the bustle and consternation that is 
going on below, such a sight shall be witnessed from the 
canopy of heaven as will spread silence over the face of the 
world, and fix and solemnize every individual of its incum- 
bent population. Oh, my brethren, let us not think that on 
that day when the Judge is to appear charged with the 
mighty object of vindicating before men and angels the 
truth and the majesty of God—that the fury of God will 
not then appear in bright and burning manifestation. But 
what I have to tell you on this day is, that fury is not in 


‘FURY NOTIN GOD. 487 


God—that now is the time of those things which belong to 
the peace of our eternity ; and that if you will only hear on 
this the day of your merciful visitation, you will be borne 
off in safety from all those horrors of dissolving nature, and 
amid the wild war and frenzy of its reeling elements, will be 
carried by the arms of love to a place of security and ever- 
lasting triumph. | | 

II. This brings us to the second head of discourse—God 
is not wanting to glorify Himself by the death of sinners-— 
‘* Who would set the thorns and the briers against me in 
battle?’ The wicked and the righteous are often repre- 
sented in Scripture by figures taken from the vegetable 
world. The saved and sanctified are called trees of right- 
eousness, the planting of the Lord that He might be glori- 
fied. The godly man is said to be like a tree planted by the 
rivers of water, which bringeth forth its fruit in its season. 
The judgment which cometh upon a man is compared to an 
axe laid to the root of a tree. A tree is said to be known 
by its fruits; and as a proof that the kind of character of 
men is specified by the kind of tree in the woods, wé read 
that of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of the bramble- 
bush gather they grapes. You will observe that the thorn, 
is one of the kinds instanced in the text, and when God says, 
I would go through them, I would burn them together, He 
speaks of the destruction which cometh on all who remain 
in the state of thorns and briers; and this agrees with what 
we read in the Epistle to the Hebrews, “‘ That which beareth 
thorns and briers is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing, whose 
end is to be burned.” 

Thorns and briers are in other places still more directly 
employed to signify the enemies of God. ‘ And the light 
of Israel shall be for a fire,’”’ says one of the prophets, ‘ and 
his Holy One for a flame, and it shall burn and devour His 
thorns and His briers in one day.’’ Therefore, when God 
says in the text, ‘‘Who,would set the thorns and the briers 


488 THOMAS CHALMERS. 


against me in battle? I would go through them, I would 
burn them together,’’ He speaks of the ease wherewith He 
could accomplish His wrath upon His enemies. They would 
perish before Him like the moth. They could not stand the 
lifting up of the red right arm of the displeasure of Almighty 
God. Why set up, then, a contest so unequal as this? Why 
put the wicked in battle array against Him who could go 
through them and devour them in an instant by the breath 
of His fury? God is saying in the text that this is not what 
He is wanting. He does not want to set Himself forth as 
an enemy, or as a strong man armed against them for the 
battle—it is a battle He is not at all disposed to enter into. 
The glory He would achieve by a victory over a host so 
feeble, is not a glory that His heart is at all set upon. Oh, 
no! ye children of men, He has no pleasure in your death ; 
He is not seeking to magnify himself by the destruction of 
so paltry a foe; He could devour you in a moment; He could 
burn you up like stubble; and you mistake it if you think 
that renown on so poor a field of contest is a renown that 
He is at all aspiring after. Who would set the grasshoppers 
in battle array against the giants? Who would set thorns 
and briers in battle array against God? ‘This is not what 
He wants: He would rather something else. Be assured, 
He would rather you were to turn, and to live, and to come 
into His vineyard, and submit to the regenerating power of 
His spiritual husbandry, and be changed from the nature 
of an accursed plant to a tree of righteousness. In the 
language of the next verse, He would rather that this enemy 
of His, not yet at peace with Him, and who may therefore 
be likened to a brier or a thorn—He would rather than he 
remained so that he should take hold of God’s strength, that 
he may make peace with Him—and as the fruit of his so 
doing, he shall make peace with Him. ; 

Now tell me if this do not open up a most wonderful and 
a most inviting view of God? It is the real attitude in which 


FURY NOT IN GOD. 489 


He puts himself forth to us in the gospel of His Son. He 
there says, in the hearing of all to whom the word of this 
salvation is sent, “Why will ye die?” It iy true that by 
your death He could manifest the dignity of His Godhead ; 
He could make known the power of His wrath; He could 
spread the awe of His truth and His majesty over the whole 
territory of His government, and send forth to its uttermost 
limits the glories of His strength and His immutable sover- 
eignty. But He does not want to magnify Himself over you 
in this way; He has no ambition whatever after the renown 
of such a victory, over such weak and insignificant enemies. 
Their resistance were no trial whatever to His strength or to 
His greatness. ‘There is nothing in the destruction of crea- 
tures so weak that can at all bring Him any distinction, or 

‘throw any aggrandizement around Him. And so in Scrip- 
ture everywhere do we see Him pleading and protesting 
with you that He does not want to signalize himself upon 
the ruin of any, but would rather that they should turn and 
be saved. 

And now, my brethren, what remains for you to do? God 
is willing to save you: are you willing to be saved? The 
way is set before you most patiently and clearly in the Bible « 
—nay, the very text, brief as it is, points out to you the 
way, as I shall endeavor to explain and set before you in the 
third head of discourse. But meanwhile, and all the better 
to secure a hearing from you, let me ask you to lay it upon 
your consciences, whether you are in a state that will do for 
you to die in. If not, then I beseech you to think how cer- 
tainly death will, and how speedily it may, come upon the 
likeliest of you all. The very youngest among you know 
very well, that if not cut off previously—which is a very 
possible thing—then manhood will come, and old age will 
come, and the dying bed will come, and the very last look 
you shall ever cast on your acquaintances will come, and the 
agony of the parting breath will come, and the time when 


490 THOMAS CHALMERS. 


you are stretched a lifeless corpse before the eyes of weeping 
relatives will come, and the coffin that is to enclose you will 
come, and that hour when the company assemble to carry 
you to the churchyard will come, and that minute when 
you are put into the grave will come, and the throwing in 
of the loose earth into the narrow house where you are 
laid, and the spreading of the green sod over it—all, all 
will come on every living creature who now hears me; and 
in a few little years the minister who now speaks, and the 
people who now listen, will be carried to their long homes, 
and make room for another generation. Now, all this, you 
know, must and will happen—your common sense and 
common experience serve to convince you of it. Perhaps 
it may have been little thought of in the days of careless 
and thoughtless and thankless unconcern which you have 
spent hitherto; but I call upon you to think of it now, to 
lay it seriously to heart, and no longer to trifle and delay, 
when the high matters of death and judgment and eternity 
are thus set so evidently before you. And the tidings where- 
with I am charged—and the blood lieth upon your own head 
and not upon mine, if you will not listen to them—the object 
of my coming amongst you, is to let you know what more 
things are to come; it is to carry you beyond the regions 
of sight and of sense to the regions of faith, and to assure 
you, in the name of Him who cannot lie, that as sure as the 
hour of laying the body in the grave comes, so surely will 
also come the hour of the spirit returning to the God who 
gave it. Yes, and the day of final reckoning will come, and 
the appearance of the Son of God in heaven, and His mighty 
angels around Him, will come, and the opening of the books 
will come, and the standing of the men of all generations 
before the judgment-seat will come, and the solemn passing 
of that sentence which is to fix you for eternity will come. 
Yes, and if you refuse to be reconciled in the name of Christ, 
now that He is beseeching you to be so, and if you refuse to 


FURY NOT IN GOD. 491 


turn from the evil of your ways, and to do and to be what 
your Saviour would have you, I must tell you what that sen- 
tence is to be—“‘ Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting 
fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” 

There is a way of escape from the fury of this tremendous 
storm. ‘There is a pathway of egress from the state of con- 
demnation to the state of acceptance. There is a method 
pointed out in Scripture by which we, who by nature are the 
children of wrath, may come to be at peace with God. Let 
all ears be open then to our explanation of this way, as we 
bid you in the language of our text take hold of God’s 
strength, that you may make peace with Him, and which if 
you do, you shall make peace with Him. 

III. Read now the fifth verse :—‘‘ Or let him take hold 
of my strength, that he may make peace with me; and he 
shall make peace with me.”’ Or here is the same with rather. 
Rather than that what is spoken of in the fourth verse should 
fall upon you—rather than that I should engage in battle 
with mine enemies—rather than that a result so melancholy 
to them should take place, as my going through them and 
burning them together—rather than that all this should 
happen, I would greatly prefer that they took hold of my | 
strength in order to make peace with me; and I promise, as 
the sure effect of this proceeding, that they shall make peace 
with me. We have not far to seek for what is meant by this 
strength, for Isaiah himself speaks (ch. xxxiii. 6) of the 
strength of salvation. It is not your destruction but your 
salvation that God wants to put forth His strength in. There 
has strength been already put forth in the deliverance of a 
guilty world—the very strength which He wants you to lay 
hold of. He will be glorified in the destruction of the sin- 
ner, but He would like better to be glorified by his salvation. 
To destroy you is to do no more than to set fire to briers and 
thorns, and to consume them ; but to save you—this is indeed 
the power of God and the wisdom of God—this is the mighty 


492 THOMAS CHALMERS. 


achievement which angels desire to look into—this is the 
enterprise upon which a mighty Captain embarked all the 
energy that belonged to Him, and travelled in the greatness 
of His strength until that He accomplished it; and now that 
it is accomplished, God would much rather be glorified in 
the salvation of His saints, than glorified in the destruction 
of sinners. (2 Thess. i. 7, 10.) God will show His wrath, 
and make His power known in the destruction of the sin- 
ner. But it is a more glorious work of power to redeem 
that sinner, and this He engages to do for you, if you 
will take hold of His strength. He would greatly prefer 
this way of making His power known. He does not want to 
enter into battle with you, or to consume you like stubble 
by the breath of His indignation. No; He wants to trans- 
form sinners into saints: He wants to transform vessels of 
wrath into vessels of mercy, and to make known the riches 
of His glory on those whom He had afore prepared unto 
glory. There is a strength put forth in the destruction of 
the sinner, but there is also a strength put forth in the salva- 
tion of a sinner, and this is the strength which He wants you 
to lay hold of in my text—this is the strength by the dis- 
play of which He would prefer being glorified. He would 
rather decline entering into a contest with you sinners; for 
to gain a victory over you would be no more to him than to 
fight with the briers and the thorns, and to consume them. 
But from enemies to make friends of you; from the children 
of wrath to transform you into the children of adoption ; from 
the state of guilt to accomplish such a mighty and a wonder- 
ful change upon you, as to put you into the state of justifi- 
cation ; from the servants of sin to make you in the day of 
His power the willing servants of God; to chase away from 
your faculties the darkness of nature, and to make all light 
and comfort around you; to turn you from a slave of sense, 
and to invest with all their rightful ascendency over your 
affections the things of eternity; to pull down the strong- 


FURY NOT IN GOD. 493 


holds of corruption within you, and raise him who was 
Spiritually dead to a life of new obedience ;—this is the 
victory over you which God aspires after. It is not your 
destruction or your death that He delights in, or that He 
wants to be glorified by—it is your thorough and complete 
salvation from the punishment of sin, and the power of sin, 
on which He is desirous of exalting the glory of His strength, 
and this is the strength which He calls you to take hold upon. 
Let me-now, in what remains, first say a few things more 
upon this strength—the strength of salvation which is spoken 
of in the text—and then state very briefly what it is to lay 
hold of it. | 
And first we read of a mighty strength that had to be put 
forth in the work of a sinner’s justification. You know that 
all men are sinners, and so all are under the righteous con- 
demnation of God. How, in the name of all that is difficult 
and wonderful, can these sinners ever get this condemnation 
removed from them? By what new and unheard of process 
can the guilty before God ever again become justified in His 
sight? How from that throne, of which it is said that judg- 
ment and justice are the habitation, can the sentence of 
acquittal ever be heard on the children of iniquity? How 
can God’s honor be kept entire in the sight of angels, if we 
men who have repeatedly mocked Him and insulted Him, 
and made our own wish and our own way take the prece- 
dency of His high and solemn requirements—if we, with all 
this contempt of the Lawgiver expressed in our lives, and 
all this character of rebellion against Him written upon our 
foreheads, shall be admitted to a place of distinction in 
heaven—and that too after God has committed Himself in 
the hearing of angels—after he had given us a law by the 
disposition of angels, and we had not kept it—and after He 
had said how the wicked shall not go unpunished, but that 
cursed is every one who continueth not in all the words of 
the book of God’s law to do them? But what is more, it was 


494 THOMAS CHALMERS. 


not merely the good and the obedient angels who knew our 
rebellion—the malignant and fallen angels not only knew it, 
but they devised and they prompted it. And how, I would 
ask, can God keep the awful majesty of His truth and jus- 
tice entire in the sight of His adversaries, if Satan and the 
angels of wickedness along with him shall have it in their 
power to say—we prevailed on man to insult Him by sin, 
and have compelled God to put up with the affront, and to 
connive at it? 

Now, just in proportion to the weight and magnitude of 
the obstacle was the greatness of that strength which the 
Saviour put forth in the mighty work of moving it away. 
We have no adequate conception upon this matter, and must 
just take our lesson from revelation about it ;—and whether 
we take the prophecies which foretold the work of our Re- 
deemer, or the history which relates it, or the doctrine which 
expatiates on its worth and its efficacy—all go to establish 
that there was the operation of a power—that there was the 
severity of a conflict—that there was the high emprise of an 
arduous and mighty warfare—that there were all the throes 
and all the exertions of a struggling, and at length a pre- 
vailing energy in the execution of that work which our 
Saviour had to do—that He had a barrier to surmount, and 
that, too, with the cries and the pains and the sorrows of 
heavy suffering and labor—that a mighty obstacle lay before 
Him, and He, in the business of removing it, had to travel 
in all the greatness of the faculties which belonged to Him 
—that there was a burden laid upon His shoulders, which by 
no one else but the Prince of Peace could have been borne— 
that there was a task put into His hand which none but He 
could fulfil. And had the question ever been reasoned 
throughout the hosts of paradise, Who can so bend the un- 
changeable attributes of God, who can givé them a shift so 
wonderful, that the sinners who have insulted Him may be 
taken into forgiveness, and His honor be kept untainted and 


FURY NOT IN GOD. 495 


entire ?—there is not one of the mighty throng who would 
not have shrunk from an enterprise so lofty. There is not 
one of them who could at once magnify the law and release 
man from its violated sanctions. There is not one of them 
who could turn its threatening away from us, and at the 
same time give to the truth and the justice of God their 
brightest manifestation. There is not one of them who 
could unravel the mystery of our redemption through all the 
difficulties which beset and which surround it. There is not 
one of them who, by the strength of his arm, could have 
obtained the conquest over these difficulties. And however 
little we may enter into the elements of this weighty specu- 
lation, let us forget not that the question was not merely 
between God and man—it was between God and all the 
creatures He had formed. They saw the dilemma; they felt 
how deeply it involved the character of the Deity; they 
perceived its every bearing on the majesty of His attributes, 
and on the stability of the government that was upheld by 
Him. With them it was a matter of deep and most substan- 
tial interest ; and when the Eternal Son stepped forward to 
carry the undertaking to its end, the feeling amongst them 
all was that a battle behoved to be fought, and that the 
strength of this mighty Captain of our salvation was alone’ 
equal to the achievement of the victory. 

** Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments 
from. Bozrah? this that is glorious in His apparel, travelling 
in the greatness of His strength? I that speak in righteous- 
ness, mighty to save. Wherefore art thou red in thine 
apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the 
wine-fat ? I have trodden the wine-press alone; and of the 
people there was none with me; for I will tread them in 
mine anger, and trample them in my fury; and their blood 
shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all 
my raiment. For the day of vengeance is in mine heart, 
and the year of my redeemed is come. And I looked, and 


496 THOMAS CHALMERS. 


there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none 
to uphold; therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto 
me; and my fury, it upheld me.” 

A way of redemption has been found out in the unsearch- 
able riches of divine wisdom, and Christ is called the wisdom 
of God. But the same Christ is also called the power of God. 
In the mighty work of redemption He put forth a strength, 
and it is that strength that we are called to take hold upon. 
There was a wonderful strength in bearing the wrath which’ 
would have fallen on the millions and millions more of a 
guilty world. There was a strength which bore Him up 
under the agonies of the garden. There was a strength 
which supported Him under the hidings of His Father’s 
countenance. There was a strength which upheld Him in 
the dark hour of the travail of His soul, and which one 
might think had well-nigh given way when He called out, 
“My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” There 
was a strength which carried Him in triumph through the 
contest over Satan, when he buffeted Him with his tempta- 
tions; and a strength far greater than we know of in that 
mysterious struggle which He held with the powers of dark- 
ness, When Satan fell like lightning from heaven, and the 
Captain of our salvation spoiled principalities and powers, 
and made a show of them openly, and triumphed over them. 
There was a strength in overcoming all the mighty diffi- 
culties which lay in the way between the sinner and God, 
in unbarring the gates of acceptance to a guilty world, in 
bringing truth and mercy to meet, and righteousness and 
peace to enter into fellowship—so that God might be just, 
while He is the justifier of him who believeth in Jesus. 

So much for the strength which is put forth in the work 
of man’s redemption. But there is also a strength put forth 
in the work of man’s regeneration. Christ hath not only 
done a great work for us in making good our reconciliation 
with God—He further does a great work in us when He 


FURY NOT IN GOD. 497 


makes us like unto God. But I have not time to dwell upon 
this last topic, and must content myself with referring you, 
to the following Scriptures—Eph. i. 19; ii. 10; Phil. iv. 
13; 2 Cor. xii. 9,10; John xv. 5. The power which raised 
Jesus from the dead is the power which raises us from our 
death in trespasses and sins. The power that was put forth 
on creation is the power that makes us new creatures in 
Jesus Christ our Lord. 

Neither have I time to make out a full demonstration of 
what is meant by laying hold of that strength. When you 
apply to a friend for some service, some relief from “distress 
or difficulty, you may be said to lay hold of him; and when 
you place firm reliance both on his ability and willingness to 
do you the service, you may well say that your hold is upon 
your friend—an expression which becomes all the more 
appropriate should he promise to do the needful good office, 
in which case your hold is not upon his power only, but upon 
his faithfulness. And it is even so with the promises of God 
in Christ Jesus—you have both a power and a promise to 
take hold of. If you believe that Christ is able to save to 
the uttermost all who come unto God through Him, and 
if you believe the honesty of His invitation to all who are 
weary and heavy-laden, that they might come unto Him and 
have rest unto their souls, thus judging Him to be faithful 
who has promised, then indeed will you lay hold of Christ 
-as the power of God unto salvation, and according to the 
faith which has thus led you to fix upon the Saviour so will 
it be done unto you. ‘To continue in this faith is in the 
language of Scripture to hold fast your confidence and the 
rejoicing of your hope firm unto the end. Cast not away 
this confidence which hath great recompense of reward; or: 
if you have not yet begun to place this confidence in the 
assurances of the gospel, lay hold of them now—they are 
addressed to each and to all of you. It is not a vague 

21 


498 THOMAS CHALMERS. 


generality of which I am speaking. Let every man amongst 
you take up with Christ, and trust in Him for yourself. 

I am well aware that unless the Spirit reveal to you, all 
T have said about Him will fall fruitless upon your ears, and 
your hearts will remain as cold and as heavy and as alienated 
as ever. Faith is His gift, and it is not of ourselves. But 
the minister is at his post when he puts the truth before 
you; and you are at your posts when you hearken diligently, 
and have a prayerful spirit of dependence on the Giver of all 
wisdom—that He will bless the word spoken, and make it 
reach your souls in the form of a salutary and convincing 
application. And it is indeed wonderful—it is passing won- 
derful, that there should be about us such an ungenerous 
suspicion of our Father who is in heaven. It cannot be 
sufficiently wondered at that all the ways in which He sets 
Himself forth to us should have so feeble an influence in the 
way of cheering us on to a more delighted confidence. How 
shall we account for it—that the barrier of unbelief should 
stand so obstinately firm in spite of every attempt and every 
remonstrance—that the straitening should still continue— 
not the straitening of God towards us, for He has said 
everything to woo us to put our trust in Him—but the 
straitening of us towards God, whereby in the face of His 
every and and exhilarating declaration we persist in being 
cold and distant and afraid of Him? 

I know not, my brethren, in how far I may have succeeded, 
as an humble and unworthy instrument, in drawing aside the 
veil which darkens the face of Him who sitteth on the 
throne. But oh, how imposing is the attitude, and how 
altogether affecting is the argument with which He comes 
forward to us in the text of this day! It is not so much 
His saying that there is no fury in Him—this He often tells 
us in other passages of Scripture; but the striking peculi- 
arity of the words now submitted to us is the way in which 


FURY NOTIN GOD. 499 


He would convince us how little interest He can have in our 
destruction, and how far it is from His thoughts to aspire 
after the glory of such an achievement, as if He had said— 
it would be nothing to me to consume you all by the breath 
of my indignation—it would throw no illustration over me 
to sweep away the whole strength of that rebellion which 
you have mustered up against me—it would make no more 
to my glory than if I went through the thorns and briers 
and burned them before me. This is not the battle I want 
to engage in—this is not the victory by which I seek to sig- 
nalize myself; and you mistake me—you mistake me, ye 
feeble children of men, if you think that I aspire after any- 
thing else with any one of you than that you should be pre- 
vailed on to come into my vineyard, and lay hold of my 
strength, and seek to make peace with me, and you shall 
make peace with me. The victory that my heart is set upon 
is not a victory over your persons—that is a victory that 
will easily be gotten in the great day of final reckoning over 
all who have refused my overtures, and would none of my 
reproof, and have turned them away from my beseeching 
offers of reconcilation. In that great day of the power of 
mine anger it will be seen how easy it is to accomplish such * 
a victory as this—how rapidly the fire of my conflagration 
will involve the rebels who have opposed me in that devour- 
ing flame from which they never, never can be extricated— 
how speedily the execution of the condemning sentence will 
run through the multitude who stand at the left hand of the © 
Avenging Judge; and rest assured, ye men who are now hear- — 
ing me, and whom I freely invite all to enter into the vine- 
yard of God, that this is not the triumph that God is long- 
ing after. It is not a victory over your persons then of which 
He is at all ambitious—it is a victory over your wills now— 
it is that you do honor to His testimony by placing your 
reliance on it—it is that you accept of His kind and free 
assurances that He has no ill-will to you—it is that you cast 


500 THOMAS CHALMERS. 


the whole burden of sullen fear and suspicion away from your 
hearts, and that now, even now, you enter into a fellowship 
of peace with the God whom you have offended. Oh! be 
prevailed upon. I know that terror will not subdue you; I 
know that all the threatenings of the law will not reclaim 
you; I know that no direct process of pressing home the 
claims of God upon your obedience will ever compel you to 
the only obedience that is of any value in His estimation— 
even the willing obedience of the affections to a father whom 
you love. But surely when He puts on in your sight the 
countenance of a Father—when He speaks to you with the 
tenderness of a Father—when He tries to woo you back to 
that house of His from which you have wandered, and, to 
persuade you of His good-will, descends so far as to reason 
the matter, and to tell you that He is no more seeking any 
glory from your destruction than He would seek glory from 
lighting into a blaze the thorns and the briers, and burning 
them together—ah! my brethren, should it not look plain 
to the eye of faith how honest and sincere the God of your 
redemption is, who is thus bowing Himself down to the men- 
tion of such an argument! Do lay hold of it, and be im- 
pressed by it, and cherish no longer any doubt of the good- 
will of the Lord God, merciful and gracious; and let your 
faith ‘work by love to Him who hath done so much and said 
so much to engage it, and let this love evince all the power 
of a commanding principle within you, by urging your every 
footstep to the new obedience of new creatures in Jesus 
Christ your Lord. 

Thus the twofold benefit of the gospel will be realized by 
all who believe and obey that gospel. Reconciled to God 
by the death of His Son, regenerated by the power of that 
mighty and all-subduing Spirit who is at the giving of the 
Son, your salvation will be complete—washed, and sancti- 
fied, and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by 
the Spirit of our God. 


er lk be 
THE TEACHING OF THE CHURCH. 


Prcscuxst. 

[The ‘‘ Union of Evangelical Churches of France’ embraces a mem- 
bership of merely a few thousand souls; but it is a live Christian 
organization. Hitherto merely tolerated by the Roman Catholic 
government, it has done much in support of pure Gospel truth. Ep- 
MOND DE Pressensf, D.D., Pastor of the French Evangelical Church, 
Paris, is worthy to be its representative, by right of intellectual gifts, 
scholarship, and eloquence. By his writings, he has powerfully 
combated the sceptical works of Renan and Strauss. Among those 
translated are: ‘‘ Jesus Christ; His Times, Life, and Work;’’ ‘‘ The 
Redeemer ;” ‘‘ Religion and the Reign of Terror, or the Church during 
the French Revolution ;’’ “‘ The Religions before, Christ,’”’ an introduc- 
tion to the history of the first three centuries of the Church. Dr. 
Pressensé hesitates not to preach the truth in all bluntness to his 
susceptible countrymen, saying: “What is especially diseased and 
enfeebled in France is the conscience—the essential thing, the basis 
of all righteousness, of all real greatness.”’ | 


“ Take heed, therefore, how ye hear.’—Luke viii. 18. 


Tue Church teaches and is taught in turn; every Chris- 
tian contributes to this mutual teaching, and has a share in 
it. Appointed guardian of the truth, he must take care of 
the sacred deposit, defend his Church against the invasion 
of error, and preserve the pure Gospel in a faithful heart. 
He teaches as often as he gives his evidence; he teaches by 
every pious word he utters, and by every exertion he makes 
to win a soul for Jesus Christ. But precisely because he 
teaches, he needs teaching; his religious knowledge is always 
narrow and insufficient, and should he havé acquired all hu- 
man knowledge, it is as nothing compared to what he would 


still have to learn. Then this holy knowledge is of such a 
(501) 


502 EDMOND DE PRESSENSE. 


nature, that it must be increased every day in order not to 
diminish. It is forgotten with a frightful rapidity; it is 
altered not less quickly. Many causes, which it is not 
necessary to enumerate, tend to deprive us of it, if we do 
not continually reconquer it by persevering labor. Hence 
the importance to the Church herself of this teaching under 
its divets forms, the mightiest of which, because the most 
popular, is preaching. Weneed not state what it must be; 
we know that it is only efficacious, in so far as it is the living 
echo of the Holy Scripture. We wish to-day to speak par- 
ticularly to those who listen, not to those who speak. To 
say the truth, we all listen by turns; and those who are 
intrusted with the formidable task of teaching ought more 
than others to feel the necessity to be taught, and to receive 
abundantly in order to give forth abundantly. The Church 
not only addresses herself to her proper members, but also 
to that crowd of hearers who do not yet belong to her, but 
whom divers motives bring to her worship. Her teaching is 
designed for them as well as for Christians, and though it 
takes various shapes, according to the different classes of men 
to whom it is offered, it remains essentially the same, and 
the same dispositions are necessary to be benefited by it. 
We must show the same activity to learn anew the truth, as 
to learn it the first time. We shall, therefore, make no dis- 
tinction between the hearers of the Gospel; what we say to 
some will be applicable to others, and it will be easy for every 
one to lay hold of it with the particular application which 
suits him. We shall repeat to all that serious word of Jesus 
Christ: ‘TAKE HEED HOW YE HEAR!” 

When He spoke thus, He was in the first period of His 
ministry. Multitudes were thronging around Him, filled with 
admiration for His person, following Him from place to 
place, and forming for Him a triumphal retinue. Do not 
imagine that they were only spurred by low and interested 
motives. Ifa certain number of Jews, with a carnal spirit, 


THE TEACHINGS OF THE CHURCH. 503 


clave momentarily to Jesus, because they hoped to receive 
from Him material goods, and, above all things, bodily food ; 
and if some others were moved by an eager curiosity, to be 
witnesses of some astonishing miracle, yet many were won to 
the Saviour by His gentleness and tender charity. They 
liked His word as much as His miracles; it exercised on 
them a secret but powerful charm, which softened and sub- 
jugated them, and they exclaimed, after having heard some 
of His similitudes, in which He represented the greatest truths 
under simple and lively images, ‘ He does not teach as the 
Scribes and Pharisees.” A magnificent harvest seemed ripen- 
ing in those furrows scarcely sown; but the keen eye of the 
Sower discerned a real barrenness under a bright appear- 
ance. He knew how many germs would be choked under 
the stones or by the weeds, how many would be carried away 
by the wind of the world; and He knew how few the ears 
which would reach full maturity. To what are we to attribute 
such a poor result? What was wanting? It was not diligent 
culture, for the Saviour had taken that upon Himself; nor 
was the sun or the dew wanting; the favorable soil was 
wanting. It is not with the human soul as with the ploughed 
earth ; she is not fertilized passively and against her will. » 
Receiving is for her to be active and willing; conviction is a 
hard labor. Therefore, so long as she has only stopped at 
an easy emotion, at fluctuating impressions, she has not 
truly opened herself to the seed of eternal life; it is strewn 
on the wayside to rise only for a day. Therefore the divine 
Master thus solemnly warns the multitudes thronging around 
Him, ‘‘ TAKE HEED HOW YE HEAR.” To hear, is not only to 
be seated at the feet of Christ, and to feel the charm of His 
teaching: it is an act of our will. It is not sufficient to 
acknowledge that He does not teach as the Scribes and 
Pharisees. Be not deceived; His teaching, which has more 
sweetness and more charms, requires much more exertion of 
His hearers than any other. Nothing is easier than to bend 


504 EDMOND DE PRESSENSE. 


our idle spirit under the yoke of the synagogue, and to 
receive passively a prescribed doctrine. It costs more to 
enter into the school of freedom than into that of authority ; 
and the gracious Master who requires personal belief, is, 
indeed, much more exacting than those hard and haughty 
masters who only require blind submission. ‘ TAKE HEED 
HOW YE HEAR.” 

How much does not modern Christendom require to hear 

the same warning! Many centuries have passed since the 
professing Christian nations received the teaching of the 
Gospel, and yet they live in a shameful ignorance. If we 
interrogated the majority of those who bear Christ’s name, 
we should be confounded to see how little they are acquainted 
with His doctrine. They know less of Him than the pagans 
of yesterday. We are still in the presence of a great multi- 
tude sitting in darkness. And if we turn towards you, my 
dear hearers, you who have been nourished with the milk of 
the Word from your earliest infancy, you who have so often 
surrounded the pulpit of truth; and if we ask you for the 
result of so many lectures on the divine Word, and of so 
many sermons, will not the greater part of you be obliged to 
acknowledge that there is no proportion between the results 
and your privileges? It appears as if the sword of the Spirit 
had hecome blunt. To what a degree of excellence should 
we not all have reached had we answered to all the appeals 
which have been addressed to us; to what a measure of 
faith, charity, and holiness should we have not attained ? 
Let us impute to ourselves alone this barrenness. We have 
heard much, but we have not hearkened, not heard with 
_ attention. We have imagined that the teaching of the Church 
_ possessed a particular power which excused us from making 
_ any energetical attempts, and that the holy accents had a 
‘ magical influence even on an inactive soul, like the sacra- 
mental elements, according to the Roman Catholic dogma! 
What a strange subversion of every sound idea ! 


THE TEACHING OF THE CHURCH. 505 


Preaching can only have a strictly moral effect ; it com- 
municates to us thoughts and feelings, and therefore appeals 
to the thought and to the feeling. It provokes decisions and 
therefore stimulates the will. It is accordingly the most 
moral means of grace, that which necessitates most the effec- 
tive participation of our freedom. ‘TAKE HEED, THERE- 
FORE, HOW YE HEAR.” ‘To give more weight to that 
exhortation, let us consider who is He who speaks to us; 
what He tells us; the kind of attention which the truth 
revealed by Him requires; and, lastly, what it costs to 
despise it. 

Who speaks to you in the teaching which you seek at the 
foot of the pulpit of truth? Do you not know that it is God 
himself? He speaks to you first by the Holy Book, which 
is the basis of all faithful preaching. You hear His prophets 
and His apostles, those great witnesses, those incomparable 
preachers, who were authorized to say: ‘The Spirit of the 
Lord is upon us.” You have heard the sublime songs of the 
harp of Sion. The psalmist has celebrated for you the great- 
ness and the compassion of his God, who is yours, and has 
stirred you up to adoration and filial confidence. Isaiah has 
carried you up, as it were, to the foot of Jehovah’s throne, . 
and in his prophetical flight has conducted you, also, in some 
measure, to the cross where the Man of Sorrows accomplished 
the great sacrifice. Simple and sublime narrations, bringing 
to sight, with an astonishing profoundness, on the one side, 
the secret recesses of the human soul, degraded by the fall ; 
and, on the other, the admirable ways by which God reclaims 
her, and brings her back to Himself; appeals to repentance, 
sometimes filled with an alarming seriousness, and sometimes 
pervaded by an infinite tenderness: here the thunder roaring 
on an overcast sky, there the aurora of the day of salvation 
gilding the heights lately crowned with lightnings. All those 
revelations of the Old Testament, stamped by the great hope 
of the Messiah, from the first page to the last, have been 


506 EDMOND DE PRESSENSE. 


read over and over to you; all those rays which shone suc- 
cessively for the Jews, have been brought back for you to the 
same focus. God has not left you on the threshold of the 
temple, in the majestical porch of the ancient covenant. He 
has given you the Gospel, with all its details of definite 
revelations. For you John the Baptist brings from the wil- 
derness his austere preaching of repentance, and the way 
beaten by him in the desert has led before your eyes to the 
manger and the cross. For you the evangelists have painted 
the celestial, and yet so really human, figure of the Redeemer ; 
to you the apostles have proclaimed Him, as they proclaimed 
Him to the multitudes converted by them. You have heard 
those first addresses of St. Peter which gathered to the Church 
thousands of adherers. St. Paul has enabled you to lay hold 
of the most sublime sides of Christian doctrine; he has 
developed for you, with that keen logic and ardent feeling 
which characterize him, the fundamental points of the Gospel. 
St. John has given you a glimpse of those greatest depths of 
divine love, which unclose themselves to the eye like the 
unbounded azure of the sky, in that simple, hearty, mystical 
language of which he alone possesses the secret. And 
lastly, you have heard Him himself, the divine Master, 
whose every word is creative, who rouses our hidden energies, 
who humbles us without casting us down, who throws us into 
the dust, but without driving us to despair; whose word 
causes moisture and strength to flow in us, restoring the lame, 
healing the blind, raising the dead. You have heard Him as 
if you had been His contemporaries, as if you had been sit- 
ting at the foot of the mountain with the crowd who received 
the charter of His kingdom, or on the edge of Jacob’s well 
with the Samaritan woman, or in the temple in the presence 
of the unmasked and thunder-struck Pharisees, or in the 
upper room in which He opens to His disciples His 
whole heart. Hearers of the prophets and the apostles, 


THE TEACHING OF THE CHURCH. 507 


hearers of Jesus Christ, can you deny that God has spoken 
to you? | | 
We are not worthy to unloose the shoe-latchet of the last 
of the primitive witnesses; and yet, my brethren, we believe 
that God also speaks to you by our preaching, in the measure > 
_in which it is approved by Him. The treasury of grace is 
deposited in the earthen vessel; what does it signify that the 
container is weak and frail, if the contents are of infinite 
value? Revelation must become real and present, passing 
through the impressions, the aspirations, the experiences, the 
secret sorrows of the human heart at every period. Like the 
Christians of the day of Pentecost, we “speak in our own 
tongue the wonderful works of God,’ in the tongue of our 
individuality and ofourage. Certainly, our word must not be 
blindly received—it must be brought to the test of the infal- 
lible Word of God: for the pure gold of truth which we bring 
you by preaching is too often alloyed through human frailty. 
Yet, notwithstanding this, which we deplore, we believe that 
God condescends to speak through our unworthy mouths and 
to take us for His instruments also. Why, my brethren, do 
you so seldom perceive this? It is, in the first place, the 
fault of your preachers, who, too often being infatuated with » 
themselves, interposing their personalities between you and 
the truth, care more for the fame of their name than for the 
triumph of Jesus Christ. But have we no just reproach to 
make to you? Are you not constantly spreading under their 
feet that fatal net of vainglory? . Are you not much more 
preoccupied with the human side than with the divine side in 
the ministry? In acting thus, you do not wrong yourselves 
less than the witness of truth: in the presence of man you 
keep the attitude of a judge who bestows blame or appro- 
bation ; in the presence of God you ought to humble yourselves 
and to submit. Man leaves you erect; God would cast you 
into the dust at His feet. It is easier for the natural heart to 
admire than to obey, to bestow crowns on eloquence than to 


508 EDMOND DE PRESSENSE. 


receive a cross to carry from the hands of Jesus Christ. The 
Church thus tends to become a kind of academy, where more 
is spoken of talent and reputation than of conversion and 
holiness. She obtains what she wants—academical discourses 
which try to flatter a refined taste, which aim at the intellect 
and not at the heart, and which reach neither the one nor ~ 
the other: for he who seeks eloquence finds it not, just as he 
who seeks his life loses it; and you who have encouraged 
them, you leave the temple with a soul more empty than 
when you entered it. Therefore leave man alone, and only 
seek God. What need is there to hear man speaking as 
man? What good will he do you? Of what use will it be 
to you to add weakness to weakness, misery to misery? 
You must hear God. Gather eagerly the few crumbs of 
heavenly bread which preaching affords you, and forget 
everything else. If you sit down at the foot of our pulpits 
in such a disposition, you will soon recognise that God wants 
to speak to you by us. 

But there is in our midst an all-powerful preacher. No 
one sees Him with bodily eyes—no one hears Him with bodily 
ears—and yet He speaks; and when He does not speak, all 
is ineffectual, all is dead in our worship. You guess whom I 
mean-—it is the Holy Spirit. If His flame has not purified our 
lips, they only pronounce barren words which the wind car- 
ries away; if He does not open your heart as that of Lydia, 
-you remain cold and indifferent: there is no longer any com- 
munication between God and you. Without Him, the book 
which He has inspired is only a dumb book: He alone gives 
it life. But when He breathes upon those sacred pages, it 
is like a resurrection of the great biblical past. The divine 
words, pronounced centuries ago, sound again with the same 
power. We have no longer only the memorial of the evan- 
gelical history, it unrolls itself under our eyes; it resembles 
a river, the ice of which had fettered the waters, but under 
the sun’s warm breath it begins again to flow. How the 


THE TEACHING OF THE CHURCH. 509 


soul vibrates under that working of the Spirit! God speaks 
as really to her as if He shook heaven and earth. She 
does not always answer, but she well knows that He has 
spoken. 

Take heed, therefore, how ye hear. He who demands an 
- audience of you is not a man, were he the greatest or the 
most illustrious. He is the King of Heaven—He who has 
created you and will judge you. When He condescends to 
address you, one cannot say to Him as one would say to one’s 
equal, ‘‘ When I have a convenient season I will call for thee.” 
One cannot turn away with indifference when he asks our 
heart. He is not mocked with impunity : 


“God reveals His presence, 
Let us now adore Him, 
And with awe appear before Him: 
He speaks in His temple, 
All in us keep silence, 
And before Him bow with reverence: 
Him alone—God we own ; 
He is our Lord and Saviour: 
Praise His name for ever.”’ 


It is God who speaks to you; but what does He tell you? 
That which is of the utmost consequence to you—that which 
is necessary for time and for eternity. Itis here not the ques- 
tion of a truth which offers an attraction to the spirit, which 
_ adds a new notion to those which we are already possessing. 
No; the point in question is the central truth which sways all 
others, that from which they borrow their value, as the planets 
borrow their light from the luminous globe around which they 
gravitate. God does not speak to amuse our intellect, or to 
send to our hearts a sweet and figurative emotion. He wants 
to restore us to the truth in every respect. He reveals us to 
ourselves by rooting out every illusion of our mind. He shows 
us our soul quite naked; He lightens. her deep darkness ; He 
denounces to us without reserve our corruption and our per- 


510 EDMOND DE PRESSENSE. 


dition; He causes us to discover in the inward recesses of 
our being, in our perverted will, the principle of evil: and 
thus is solved the most formidable question which has ever 
tormented mankind. But He has also to tell us how He 
raises us up again—by what means He causes us to reascend 
to Him from the abyss of our degradation. He shows us, in 
the narrow path which proceeds from the cross, the way of 
returning to God and to be restored to our own. He reveals 
to us, with a perfect clearness, His design to restore all things 
in Jesus Christ, and to reconcile them by the blood of His 
cross. He teaches us how, by His Spirit, we may possess — 
again the Divine image, now disfigured in us by sin, and be- 
come sharers of His holiness. What He has to tell us may 
therefore be reduced to that declaration, “‘ Thou art lost, 
but I have forgiven thee; come to Me, and I will save thee.” 
Is there a subject of preoccupation equal to that? What 
are the things which we call important compared with that 
only needful thing? What value have the problems which 
we start, in the face of that problem of life and death, or, 
rather, of eternity? The religious truth is, definitively, the 
hidden pole on which everything depends here below, unless 
we see in the world and in history a mere plaything of 
chance, and not the realization of a divine thought. To 
possess it, is to be placed in the centre of everything; is to 
have the possibility of understanding, of laying hold of 
everything; it is to see harmony follow chaos; but it is, 
above all things, to get out ourselves from disorder and find 
peace again, and, instead of advancing with a bandage on 
the eyes and despair in the heart, towards an unknown 
world, the desolate region of perdition, it is fixing our 
eyes on the cross, and walking with a firm step towards 
the realization of the most certain hopes. How should we, in 
the presence of such a truth, not borrow from St. Paul the 
familiar energy of his language, and repeat with him: “I 
count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge 


THE TEACHING OF THE CHURCH. 511 


of Christ Jesus my Lord—for whom I have suffered the loss 
of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win 
Christ.” How serious, important, and indispensable, there- 
fore, is the Word which God directs to us! In the midst of 
all those diverse ways which cross one another in this 
great crossway of human opinions, a voice is heard—the 
voice of God—to tell us, “This is the way of salvation.” 
We have only a few days to hear it. Oh! ‘TakE HEED 
‘HOW YE HEAR.” 

The same recommendation follows from the nature of the 
teaching which the Church offers to us—it demands serious 
attention. Shut up, as we are commonly, in the circle of 
visible things, it is difficult for us to lift our minds to the con- 
templation of invisible things. Our thoughts have been too 
much accustomed to creep; their heavy wings do no longer 
carry them, by a sudden flight, towards the celestial heights. 
Our preoccupations are for the world; this is the real dispo- 
sition of our spirit—it has a great inclination for it. If we do 
not energeticallg react against that natural tendency, we 
shall be hurried by the stream of vanity far from truth. 
We all wear the chain of vulgar interests, of trifling cares. 
If we do not break it, we shall remain the sad prisoners of ., 
the world, at the very hour when the voice from heaven 
rings in our ears. The most stirring appeals will be covered 
by the tumult of our worldly thoughts—more culpable than 
those in the parable, who refused to answer the invitation of 
a generous king, under pretence of their affairs or their 
pleasures. In reality—that is to say, in the spirit—one has 
remained in his fields, where he calculates the value of the 
next harvest; another is in his counting-house, reckoning his 
money; a third calls to his mind the success of his literary 
labors; and that elegant lady figures to herself the festivity 
where she hopes to shine; and he who is going to marry her 
only thinks of her. How many wandering minds in the 
great assemblies united in our temples! If we should hear 


512 | EDMOND DE PRESSENSE. 


vibrating in distinct words all the confused thoughts of those 
who attend, what a buzzing of vanity, what an uproar of: 
eager desires! It will be thus, my brethren, as long as you 
do not struggle against yourselves. Attention is the prize 
of continued exertion—it supposes a firm resolution to 
remove every frivolous distraction. We must be watchful 
every moment to drive away those flocks of birds always 
ready to pick up the seed of eternal life as it falls on the 
soil. We must curb those erring thoughts which drag us 
along through the world—shake off the torpor into which 
an idle fancy plunges us, and consecrate our whole being in 
calm attention. 

Yet attention is not sufficient, Christian truth claims a par- 
ticular attention. It is not enough to bring great sagacity, a 
penetrating spirit, trained to study and fully determined to 
learn the truths which are presented. If it were only the 
question of a purely human knowledge, we should not require 
more. Such a person will easily succeed in earthly sciences, 
he will speedily make himself familiar withgthe most compli- 
cated languages, he will be a great mathematician, an eminent 
scholar; he will, as one has cleverly said, make the tour of 
the planet, and return Jaden with a treasure of learning which 
will secure to him the most envied glory. But the region 
beyond that, the country of the soul, the sublime sphere of 
religious truth, will not open to him on that account; no, not 
even when borne on the wings of genius. This man whose 
thought is so cultivated and so deep in a limited circle, is lost 
in darkness as soon as he oversteps it; he is a blind man, the 
unhappiest of all the blind, because he fancies he can see 
everything, and boldly advances towards the unknown. Reli- 
gious truth has organs of its own, and by which it reveals 
itself to man. It addresses itself above all things to his heart 
and his conscience. ‘There, in our moral being, is the inward 
eye, able to perceive the heavenly light ; there is the sense 
of the divine. Neither the understanding, nor the imagina- 


THE TEACHING OF THE CHURCH. 5138 


tion, nor the reason, abandoned to itself, will ever receive a 
ray of it, because it may happen that we deny God and the 
invisible world, while we possess these faculties in a superior 
degree. Take heed, therefore, how ye hear. If your heart is 
not well prepared, if your conscience is not upright, you will 
certainly have heard sounds ringing in your ears; but those 
sounds, which bring to others an unspeakable joy, will for you 
be lost in the air where they vibrated. Lo! there is close to 
you a man with an uncultivated appearance, perhaps one of 
the despised of the earth. See how his eyes sparkle, what a 
holy emotion animates all his features on hearing those same 
words which leave you cold and indifferent! He eagerly. 
gathers each word, as the thirsty man drinks the water of 
the well found at last in the burning sand. He weeps, he 
worships, he would like to prostrate himself before God, for 
he will go down to his house justified. That man is not like 
you; he has eyes to see, and ears to hear; he has not shut up 
his heart, he has not stifled his conscience. When, escaping 
one day from the pride which possesses you, and obeying that 
secret impulse which drives you towards God, ceasing to 
stifle your best aspirations, you will come into this temple 
with a broken heart and an attentive conscience, you too 
will see and you will hear. It will seem to you as if you 
awoke from a bad dream, which had veiled and darkened 
everything. A wonderful world of beauty will appear to 
you where you have only seen vain illusions; you will 
recognise your God in the Galilean, and you will know 
that from a despised country the salvation of mankind has 
come. 

The truth in which you have been instructed in the Chris- 
tian Church is a holy law, and, at the same time, an august 
dogma. Itaims at life, at reality, at practice ; in this province 
conviction is called conversion; to believe is not simply to 
adhere in the spirit to a system, it is to change the way, it is 
to choose a new path, it is to give ourselves to Jesus Christ. 

17 2K 


514. EDMOND DE PRESSENSE. 


The part of the will is therefore considerable in the formation 
of our belief. We are incessantly provoked, by the preaching 
of the Gospel, to make a vigorous use of it. If we are not 
yet the true disciples of Christ, we are urged to side with Him, 
to get out of our hesitation and to be decided; the teaching 
of the Church places before our eyes life and death, it solicits 
from us a determination which allows no delay. If we have 
already accepted in principle the ground of Christian life, new 
consequences of the law of holiness will be each day proposed 
to us; numberless duties will be presented, and we shall have 
thus a new path to take whenever we hear the divine Word. 
Take heed, therefore, how ye hear. If you hear the teaching 
of the Church only as one hears a dissertation, or a discourse 
full of gentleness which touches the heart, but. which leaves 
only a few emotions behind, the morning hoar-frost will not 
pass away more quickly than those superficial impressions. 
He who is satisfied to hear the divine Word without practising 
it, is, according to St. James, a forgetful hearer. He only 
remembers it who tries to accomplish the divine will, and who, 
from the always vague and movable impression, passes to 
positive acts. Besides, nothing is more sad, nothing, I should 
say, is more demoralizing, than to understand our duties and 
not perform them. The light which illuminates without 
warming rises from that pale and frozen sun of the abode 
of condemnation, the inhabitants of which believe what they 
curse ; the devils know what is good, while they reject it. To 
know the best and to do the worst is the perversion of perver- 
sions. Let us take heed lest we approach it imperceptibly, by 
accustoming ourselves to the view of the Christian ideal 
image, while we resign ourselves to the flat reality of a miser- 
able life. Let us to each progress in knowledge add progress 
in holiness—an effort, at least, a firmer determination better 
to serve God. Let us seek in each exhortation that which 
concerns us personally, let us stop in its flight the arrow 
which is designed for us, ict us introduce into our life the 


THE TEACHING OF THE CHURCH. 515 


reforms which we feel to be necessary. Let us not take 
Christianity as Pharisees or as artists ; let us take it seriously, 
as the rule of our life, a rule not only for the great days, 
but for the most ordinary course of existence. Let us 
always bear in mind that we are standing on the boundaries 
of eternity, and that only to-day belongs to us. How is it 
that we so much despise invisible and eternal things? What 
are the interests which are debated in the forum or in parlia- 
ment, compared with the interests of the immortal soul? 
It is truly inconceivable that discourses on the future 
life leave us so tranquil, as if our fate did not depend on 
their issue. was 

These reflections, my brethren, lead us to a last considera- 
tion, which will give to our text a frightful solemnity. TAKE 
HEED HOW YE HEAR, thinking of what it costs to despise the 
truth. The Word of God does not return to Him without 
effect ; it comes back to Him after having saved or ruined us. 
It is not possible for it to resemble ours, which so often is 
lost in void space; it does not fall to the ground, or, if it 
falls, it is either like the dew which fertilizes the soil or the 
lightning which consumes it. After having heard it, we are 
no longer in the position in which we were before it was pro-.. 
claimed to us. If we have received it with submission, it 
has opened to us that door of heaven which no one can shut, 
it has freed us from condemnation. But if we have rejected 
it, it has fastened upon us the burden of a new and more 
terrible condemnation, for it increases our responsibility. 
Before you had heard it one could believe that there was 
more ignorance than conscious rebellion in your estrangement 
from God; one could think that if you knew Him you would 
be eager to love and to serve Him. Such an excuse is no 
longer possible from the day you have been instructed in the 
truth. You know now what you reject; it is with a full 
knowledge that you reject a God who has clearly manifested 
himself to you. You add to your old sins a new sin, which 


516 EDMOND DE PRESSENSE. 


crowns them all, which stamps them with a fixed decision, 
and which renders them, on that account, incurable. It is 
with full consciousness that you turn aside from a God who has 
drawn near to you. Therefore, after this momentary con- 
tact with the truth, you are more perverted and more 
hardened; your culpability has increased in proportion to 
the facilities which had been afforded to you, and on your 
impenitent soul falls, with all its weight, that severe word: 
‘‘How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation t” 
It would have been better that the name of Jesus Christ had 
never been pronounced in our ears, rather than, having 
learned it from our childhood, never to have given Him our 
hearts. It would have been better to have been born on 
some far-off shore, where redeeming truth has not yet pene- 
trated, rather than, having grown up in the shade of the 
sanctuary, to have been lulled into formalism. It would 
have been better to have inhabited a Sodom rather than a 
Capernaum or a Jerusalem, and have received with indiffer- 
ence the message of salvation. A frightful condition that 
which compels us to consider the offered grace as our greatest 
misfortune in consequence of its abuse, and which causes us 
to lose ourselves irreparably with what was designed to 
save us. | 

When the divine child of Mary was presented to Simeon, 
the old saint declared that He ‘‘ would be set for the fall and 
rising again of many,’’ and the apostle St. Paul developed 
the same thought by saying that the Gospel ‘is either the 
savour of life unto life, or the savour of death unto death.” 
The religious history of mankind is a long commentary on — 
these words. The most dreadful thing is the national fall of 
the chosen people, and these eighteen centuries Jesus Christ 
has been a savour of death unto death to the unconverted 
Jews. In the midst of our modern Christendom, wherever 
evangelical light has shone on inert or frivolous souls, it has 
left behind it a moral decline which was almost irremediable. 


THE TEACHING OF THE CHURCH. 517 


Certainly the unhappiest man to-day, the most hardened, 
is he who has been blessed most, enlightened most, and 
who has not truly given himself to God. It is some 
Demas, who has heard the pure Gospel, who has preached 
it perhaps, but who has not been truly converted himself. 
Woe to that man! it would have been good for him if he had 
never been born! On the other hand, what an admirable 
raising up of formerly degraded souls, what a transforma- 
tion, what a resurrection! Jesus Christ has been to 
them a savour of life. There is a person, who, a few days 
ago, WaS an ignorant man, with a coarse spirit, who could 
not understand his Master, nor follow Him in, the day of 
danger, and who denied Him three times in the court of the 
high priest. ‘To-day it is the apostle St. Peter, confounding 
the Sanhedrim by his courage, resisting threats and _ ill- 
treatment; and as much by his humility, as by his immova- 
ble firmness. Yesterday he was the thunderer’s son, full of 
violence in his indignation; to-day he is the apostle of 
charity. Yesterday we saw Saul, the persecutor; to-day we 
see St. Paul. And if you trace these falls and these risings 
again back to their first cause, you will find, on the one side 
the rejected word, and on the other the received and 
accepted word; therefore, ‘TAKE HEED HOW YE HEAR. 

TAKE HEED, my brethren, we have discharged our duty ; 
we have proclaimed before you the truth; what can we do 
‘more? We cannot substitute ourselves for you: the exercise 
of your will is the most personal act which can be accom- 
plished. It depends on your determination to make of the 
hour you have passed in this temple the subject of an 
incurable regret, or of an eternal thanksgiving. ‘Take your 
resolution; make haste, the time is short; truth wears 
rapidly out for him who refuses to open his spirit to it. Do 
not lose the few days which God is still granting to you ; 
and remember that the only bread which nourishes is that 
which we eat in the sweat of our brow. 

TAKE HEED, THEREFORE, HOW YE HEAR. Amen. 


D9, OP, Gi Wis 
THE TRANSFIGURATION. 


KINGSLEY. 

[Cuartes Kinestey, D.D., professor of modern history at Cam- 
bridge, chaplain in ordinary to the Queen, and Dean of Rochester, was 
born at Holne Vicarage, Devonshire, June 12th 1819. He gained 
honors at Magdalen College, Cambridge, and became rector of Evers- 
ley, Hampshire, about 1844. His writings are various and able— 
Village, and National, Sermons, novels, and poems. ‘‘ Hypatia, or, 
New Foes with Old Faces,” vividly outlines the struggles of Chris- 
tianity at Alexandria with the neo-platonic philosophers of Greece, 
and the paganism of the barbarous Goths. It is designed to show 
that the sophisms of spiritualists are mere re-vampings of worn-out 
theories. Dean Kingsley has labored faithfully to better the condition 
of the English working classes, and has aided in the formation of co- 
operative associations. The following is taken from ‘ Village Ser- 
mons,” characterized as ‘‘downright, honest wisdom, conveyed in a 
plain and simple style.’ | 


‘‘ Jesus taketh Peter, and James, and John, and leadeth them wp into 
a high mountain apart, and was transfigured before them.”’—Mark 
12 


THE second lessson for this morning service brings us to 
one of the most wonderful passages in our blessed Saviour’s 
whole stay on earth, namely, His transfiguration. The 
story, as told by the different Evangelists, is this,—That our 
Lord took Peter, and John, and James his brother, and led 
them up into a high mountain apart, which mountain may 
be seen to this very day. It is a high peaked hill, standing 
apart from all the hills around it, with a small smooth space 
of ground upon the top, very fit, from its height and its 
loneliness, for a transaction like the transfiguration, which 
our Lord wished no one but these three to behold. There 
the apostles fell asleep; while our blessed Lord, who had 


deeper thoughts in His heart than they had, knelt down and 
(518) 


THE TRANSFIGURATION. 519 


prayed to His Father and our Father, which is in heaven. 
And as he prayed, the form of His countenance was changed, 
and His raiment became shining, white as the light; and 
there appeared Moses and Elijah talking with Him. They 
talked of matters which the angels desire to look into, of the 
greatest matters that ever happened in this earth since it 
was made; of the redemption of the world, and of the death 
which Christ was to undergo at Jerusalem. And as they 
were talking, the apostles awoke, and found into what glori- 
ous company they had fallen while they slept. What they 
felt no mortal man can tell—that moment was worth to them 
all the years they had lived before. When they had gone 
up with Jesus into the mount, He was but the poor carpen- 
ter’s son, wonderful enough to them, no doubt, with His wise, 
searching words, and His gentle, loving looks, that drew to 
Him all men who had hearts left in them, and wonderful 
enough, too, from all the mighty miracles which they had 
seen Him do; but still he was merely a man like themselves, 
poor, and young, and homeless, who felt the heat, and the 
cold, and the rough roads as much as they did. They could 
feel that he spake as never man spake—they could see that 
God’s Spirit and power was on Him as it had never been on * 
any man in their time. God had even enlightened their 
reason by His Spirit, to know that he was the Christ, the 
Son of the living God. But still it does seem they did not 
- fully understand who and what He was; they could not 
understand how the Son of God should come in the form of 
a despised and humble man; they did not understand that 
His glory was to be a spiritual glory. They expected His 
kingdom to be a kingdom of this world—they expected His 
glory to consist in palaces, and armies, and riches, and 
jewels, and all the magnificence with which Solomon and the 
old Jewish kings were adorned ; they thought that he was 
to conquer back again from the Roman emperor all the 
inestimable treasures of which the Romans had robbed the 


520 CHARLES KINGSLEY. 


Jews, and that He was to make the Jewish nation, like the 
Roman, the conquerors and masters of all the nations of the 
earth. So that it was a puzzling thing to their minds why 
he should be King of the Jews at the very time that he was 
but a poor tradesman’s son, living on charity. It was to 
show them that His kingdom was the kingdom of heaven 
that He was transfigured before them. 

They saw His glory—the glory as of the only begotten of 
the Father, full of grace and truth. The form of His 
countenance was changed; all the majesty, and courage, 
and wisdom, and love, and resignation, and pity, that lay in 
His noble heart, shone out through His face, while He spoke 
of His death which he should accomplish at Jerusalem—the 
Holy Ghost that was upon Him, the Spirit of wisdom, and 
love, and beauty —the Spirit which produces everything 
that is lovely in heaven and earth, in soul and body, blazed 
out through His eyes, and all His glorious countenance, and 
made Him look like what He was—a God. My friends, 
what a sight! Would it not be worth while to journey 
thousands of miles—to go through all difficulties, dangers, 
that man ever heard of, for one sight of that glorious face, 
that we might fall down upon our knees before it, and, if it 
were but for a moment, give way to the delight of finding 
something that we could utterly love and utterly adore? I 
say, the delight of finding something to worship ; for if there 
is a noble, if there is a holy, if there is a spiritual feeling 
in man, it is the feeling which bows him down before those 
who are greater, and wiser, and holier than himself. I say, 
that feeling of respect for what is noble is a heavenly feeling. 
The man who has lost it—the man who feels no respect for 
those who are above him in age, above him in knowledge, 
above him in wisdom, above him in goodness,—that man shall 
in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. It is only the 
man who is like a little child, and feels the delight of having 
some one to look up to, who will ever feel delight in looking 


THE TRANSFIGURATION. 521 


up to Jesus Christ, who is the Lord of lords and King of 
kings. It was the want of respect, it was the dislike of 
feeling any one superior to himself, which made the devil 
rebel against God, and fall from heaven. It will be the 
feeling of complete respect—the feeling of kneeling at the 
feet of one who is immeasurably superior to ourselves in 
everything, that will make up the greatest happiness of 
heaven. ‘This is a hard saying, and no man can understand 
it, save he to whom it is given by the Spirit of God. 

That the apostles had this feeling of immeasurable respect 
for Christ there is no doubt, else they would never have 
been apostles. But they felt more than this. There were 
other wonders in that glorious vision besides the countenance 
of our Lord. His raiment, too, was changed, and became 
all brilliant, white as the light itself. Was not that a lesson 
to them? Was it not as if our Lord had said to them, ‘I 
am a king, and have put on glorious apparel; but whence 
does the glory of my raiment come? J have no need of 
fine linen, and purple, and embroidery, the work of men’s 
hands; Z have no need to send my subjects to mines and 
caves to dig gold and jewels to adorn my crown: the earth 
is mine and the fullness thereof. All this glorious earth, . 
with its trees and its flowers, its sunbeams and its storms, is 
mine. J made it—JZ can do what I will with it. All the 
mysterious laws by which the light and the heat flow out for 
ever from God’s throne, to lighten the sun, and the moon, 
and the stars of heaven—they are mine. J am the light of 
the world—the light of men’s bodies as well as of their souls ; 
and here is my proof of it. Look at Me. I am He that | 
“‘decketh Himself with light as it were with a garment, who 
layeth the beams of His chambers in the waters, and walketh 
upon the wings of the wind.’”’ This was the message which 
Christ’s glory brought the apostles—a message which they 
could never forget. The spiritual glory of His countenance 
had shown them that he was a spiritual king —that His 


522 CHARLES KINGSLEY. 


strength lay in the spirit of power, and wisdom, and beauty, 
and love, which God had given Him without measure; and 
it showed them, too, that there was such a thing as a spiritual 
body, such a body as each of us some day shall have if we 
be found in Christ at the resurrection of the just—a body 
which shall not hide a man’s spirit when it becomes subject 
to the wear and tear of life, and disease, and decay ; but a 
spiritual body—a body which shall be filled with our spirits, 
which shall be perfectly obedient to our spirits—a body 
through which the glory of our spirits shall shine out, as the 
glory of Christ’s spirit shone out through His body at the 
transfiguration. Brethren, we know not yet what we shall be, 
but this we do know, that when He shall appear, “ we shall 
be like him, for we shall see Him as He is.”” (1 John i. 2.) 

Thus our Lord taught them by His appearance that there 
is such a thing as a spiritual body, while, by the glory of 
His raiment in addition to His other miracles, He taught 
them that He had power over the laws of nature, and could, 
in His own good time, ‘‘ change the bodies of their humilia- 
tion, that they might be made like unto His glorious body, 
according to the mighty working by which He is able to 
subdue all things to Himself.” 

But there was yet another lesson which the apostles learned 
from the transfiguration of our Lord. They beheld Moses 
and Elijah talking with Him :—Moses the great lawgiver of 
their nation, Elijah the chief of all the Jewish prophets. 
We must consider this a little to find out the whole depth of 
its meaning. You remember how Christ had spoken of him- 
self as having come, not to destroy the Law and the Prophets, 
but to fulfil them. You remember, too, how He had always 
said that He was the person of whom the Law and the 
Prophets had spoken. 

Here was an actual sign and witness that His words were 
true—here was Moses, the giver of the Law, and Elijah, the 
chief of the Prophets, talking with Him, bearing witness to 


THE TRANSFIGURATION. 523 


Him in their own persons, and showing, too, that it was His 
death and His perfect sacrifice that they had been shadowing 
forth in the sacrifices of the law and in the dark speeches 
of prophecy. For they talked with Him of His death, which 
He was to accomplish at Jerusalem. What more perfect 
testimony could the apostles have had to show them that 
Jesus of Nazareth, their Master, was He of whom the Law 
and the Prophets spoke—that He was indeed the Christ for 
whom Moses and Elijah, and all the saints of old, had 
looked; and that He was come, not to destroy the Law and 
the Prophets, but to fulfil them? We can hardly understand 
the awe and the delight with which the disciples must have 
beheld those blessed three — Moses, and Elias, and Jesus 
Christ, their Lord, talking together before their very eyes. 
For of all men in the world, Moses and Elias were to them the 
greatest. All true-hearted Israelites, who knew the history 
of their nation, and understood the promises of God, must 
have felt that Moses and Elias were the two greatest heroes 
and saviours of their nation, whom God had ever yet raised 
up. And the joy and the honor of thus seeing them face 
to face, the very men whom they had loved and reverenced 
in their thoughts, whom they had heard and read of from. 
their childhood, as the greatest ornaments and glories of 
their nation—the joy and the honor, I say, of that unex- 
pected sight, added to the wonderful majesty which was 
suddenly revealed to their transfigured Lord, seemed to have 
been too much for them—they knew not what to say. Such 
company seemed to them for the moment heaven enough; 
and St. Peter, first finding words, exclaimed, ‘ Lord, it is 
good for us to be here. If thou wilt, let us build three 
tabernacles, one for Thee, and one for Moses, and one for 
Elias.” Not, I fancy, that they intended to worship Moses 
and Elias, but that they felt that Moses and Elias, as well 
as Christ, had each a divine message, which must be listened 
to; and therefore, they wished that each of them might 


524 CHARLES KINGSLEY. 


have his own tabernacle, and dwell among men, and each 
teach his own particular doctrine and wisdom in his own 
school. It may seem strange that they should put Moses 
and Klias so on an equality with Christ, but the truth was, 
that as yet they understood Moses and Elias better than they 
did Christ. They had heard and read of Moses and Elijah 
all their lives—they were acquainted with all their actions 
and words—they knew thoroughly what great and noble men 
the Spirit of God had made them, but they did not under- 
stand Christ in like manner. They did not yet feel that 
God had given Him the Spirit without measure—they did 
not understand that He was not only to be a lawgiver and a 
prophet, but a sacrifice for sin, the conqueror of death and 
hell, who was to lead captivity captive, and receive inestima- 
ble gifts for men. Much less did they think that Moses and 
Elijah were but His servants—that all ther spirit and theer 
power had been given by Him. But this also they were 
taught a moment afterwards; for a bright cloud oversha- 
dowed them, hiding from them the glory of God the Father, 
whom no man hath seen or can see, who dwells in the light 
which no man can approach unto; and out of that cloud a 
voice, saying, ‘This is my beloved Son; hear ye Him;” 
and then, hiding their faces in fear and wonder, they fell to 
the ground; and when they looked up, the vision and the 
voice had alike passed away, and they saw no man but Christ 
alone. Was not that enough for them? Must not the 
meaning of the vision have been plain to them? They surely 
understood from it that Moses and Elijah were, as they had 
ever believed them to be, great and good, true messengers 
of the living God; but that their message and their work 
was done—that Christ, whom they had looked for, was come 
—that all the types of the law were realized, and all the 
prophecies fulfilled, and that henceforward Christ, and Christ 
alone, was to be their Prophet and their Lawgiver. Was 
not this plainly the meaning of the Divine voice? For when 


THE TRANSFIGURATION. 525 


they wished to build three tabernacles, and to honor Moses 
and Elijah, the Law and the Prophets, as separate from 
Christ, that moment the heavenly voice warned them: 
“ This—this is my beloved Son—hear ye Him, and Him 
only, henceforward.”” And Moses and Elijah, their work 
being done, forthwith vanished away, leaving Christ alone 
to fulfil the Law and the Prophets, and all other wisdom and 
righteousness that ever was or shall be. This is another 
lesson which Christ’s transfiguration was meant to teach 
them and us, that Christ alone is to be henceforward our 
guide; that no philosophies or doctrines of any sort which | 
are not founded on a true faith in Jesus Christ, and His life 
and death, are worth listening to; that God has manifested 
forth His beloved Son, and that Him, and Him only, we are 
to hear. I do not mean to say that Christ came into the 
world to put down human learning. I do not mean that we 
are to despise human learning, as so many are apt to do 
now-a-days ; for Christ came into the world not to destroy 
human learning, but to fulfil it—to sanctify it—to make 
human learning true, and strong, and useful, by giving it a 
sure foundation to stand upon, which is the belief and know- 
ledge of His blessed self. Just as Christ came not to destroy ” 
the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfil them—to give them 
a spirit and a depth in men’s eyes which they never had 
before—just so He came to fulfil all true philosophies, all 
the deep thoughts which men had ever thought about this 
wonderful world and their own souls, by giving them a spirit 
and a depth which they never had before. Therefore let no 
man tempt you to despise learning, for it is holy to the Lord. 

There is one more lesson which we may learn from our 
Lord’s transfiguration: when St. Peter said, “Lord! it is 
good for us to be here,’’ he spoke a truth. It was good for 
him to be there; nevertheless, Christ did not listen to his 
prayer. He and his two companions were not allowed to 
stay in that glorious company. And why? Because they 


526 CHARLES KINGSLEY. 


had a work to do. They had glad tidings of great joy to 
proclaim to every creature, and it was, after all, but a selfish 
prayer, to wish to be allowed to stay in ease and glory on 
the mount while the whole world was struggling in sin and 
wickedness below them; for there is no meaning in a man’s 
calling himself a Christian, or saying that he loves God, 
unless he is ready to hate what God hates, and to fight 
against that which Christ fought against, that is, sin. No 
one has any right to call himself a servant of God, who is 
not trying to do away with some of the evil in the world 
around him. And, therefore, Christ was merciful when, 
instead of listening to St. Peter’s prayer, He led the apostles 
down again from the mount, and sent them forth, as He did 
afterwards, to preach the Gospel of the kingdom to all 
nations. For Christ put a higher honor on St. Peter by 
that than if he had let him stay on the mount all his life, 
to behold His glory, and worship and adore. And He made 
St. Peter more like Himself by doing so. For what was 
Christ’s life? Not one of deep speculations, quiet thoughts, 
aud bright visions, such as St. Peter wished to lead, but a 
life of fighting against evil; earnest, awful prayers and 
struggles within, continual labor of body and mind without, 
insult and danger, and confusion, and violent exertion, and 
bitter sorrow. This was Christ’s life—this is the life of 
almost every good man I ever heard of ;—this was St. Peter, 
and St. James, and St. John’s life afterwards. This was 
Christ’s cup, which they were to drink of as well as He ;— 
this was the baptism of fire with which they were to be bap- 
tized as well as He;—this was to be their fight of faith;— 
this was the tribulation through which they, like all other 
great saints, were to enter into the kingdom of heaven; for 
it is certain that the harder a man fights against evil, the 
harder evil will fight against him in return: but it is certain, 
too, that the harder a man fights against evil, the more he 
is like his Saviour Christ, and the more glorious will be his 


THE TRANSFIGURATION. 527 


reward in heaven. It is certain, too, that what was good for 
' St. Peter is good for us. It is good for a man to have holy 
and quiet thoughts, and at moments to see into the very 
deepest meaning of God’s word and God’s earth, and to have, 
as it were, heaven opened before his eyes; and it is good for 
a man sometimes actually to feel his heart overpowered with 
the glorious majesty of God, and to feel it gushing out with 
love to his blessed Saviour; but it is not good for him to 
stop there, any more than it was for the apostles; they had 
to leave that glorious vision and come down from the mount, 
and do Christ’s work; and so have we; for, believe me, one 
word of warning spoken to keep a little child out of sin,— 
one crust of bread given to a beggar-man, because he is your 
brother, for whom Christ died,—one angry word checked, 
when it is on your lips, for the sake of Him who was meek 
and lowly in heart; in short, any, the smallest, endeavor 
of this kind to lessen the quantity of evil which is in your- 
selves, and in those around you, is worth all the speculations, 
and raptures, and visions, and frames, and feelings in the 
world; for those are the good fruits of faith, whereby alone 
the tree shall be known, whether it be good or evil. 


Pe 
IMPORT OF THE LORD’S SUPPER. 


McCLINTOCK. 

[Joun McCuintockx, D.D., LL. D., an eminent Christian scholar and 
divine of the Methodist Episcopal Church, was born in Philadelphia 
in 1814, and in his twenty-first year graduated at the University of 
Pennsylvania. For eight years he ably edited the ‘‘ Methodist Quar- 
terly Review.” During the whole of the late war, he was pastor of 
the American Chapel in Paris, and bore eloquent testimony for his 
imperiled country. In 1867 he became president of the Drew Theo- 
logical Seminary, Madison, N. J., and died in March 1870. The 
“Theological and Biblical Cyclopedia,” yet uncompleted, attests his 
comprehensive and exact scholarship. ‘‘ He walked with God,” (states 
Bishop Janes), consecrating to His service ‘a capacious, symmetrical, 
and active mind, a gentle and philanthropic spirit, a social and sym- 
pathetic nature.” From ‘Living Words,” published by Carlton & 
Lanahan, New York, the following Sermon—preached while pastor 
of St. Paul’s M. E. Church, N. Y., in 1857—is extracted by permission. } 


‘“ For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the 
Lord's death till he come.”’—1 Cor. xi. 26. 


I purPosE this morning speaking of the Lord’s Supper. 
I can only do this in certain aspects of the subject, because 
to treat of it in full, in its nature and in its relation to the 
Church and to the individual, would require a whole series 
of sermons. Every name we give it implies a different 
aspect. We call it the Eucharist—a feast of thanksgiving ; 
the Lord’s Supper—that is to say, a feast in which we have 
communion with Christ at his own jnvitation. There are a 
great many names, and each of them is significant. 

A preliminary remark upon the sacraments of the Gospel: 
We have two sacraments—Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper. 


There were two rites in the old dispensation to which these 
(528) 


IMPORT OF THE LORD’ S SUPPER, 529 


correspond—Circumcision, and the Passover; the one the 
rite of initiation, and the other the rite of confirmation. 
There must be such rites as these in every religious organ- 
ization, and there is something analogous to them in every 
form of organization. The right of initiation under the 
old law was circumcision, performed once, and once only, 
upon a subject who was a mere passive recipient. So the 
rite of baptism in the New Testament is performed once, 
and once only, and upon a passive recipient. There is 
nothing voluntary about the sacrament considered in itself; 
the subject receives the baptism—the effusion of the water, 
the pouring of it or the immersion in it—by some other 
hand. On the contrary, the right of confirmation under 
the old law was the passover, which included certain acts on 
the part of the partaker, as well as the outward and visible 
elements of the sacrament itself. The lamb had to be pro- 
cured and slain, and was then roasted and eaten: all these 
implying voluntary acts of the participant. So in this 
sacrament there is God’s part in providing the elements and 
constituting them what they are; and, on the other hand, 
the participation of the voluntary communicants who go to 
the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper and partake of the 
emblems of the sacrament—eat and drink them. This little 
simple statement, if you will carry it home and think about 
it, will put aside many of the strange and difficult questions 
which have got about these two sacraments of baptism and 
the Lord’s Supper. The one is the rite of initiation, and 
the other the rite of confirmation. You can very easily 
see, if it be discussed whether children or grown people are 
to be baptized—whether by sprinkling, or pouring, or im- 
mersion—how trifling these differences are when compared 
with the real substance. They are akin to the disputes as 
to whether the bread should be leavened or unleavened, 
whether the wine should be fully pressed or fermented, or 
drunk from cups of silver or glass. All these are minor 
21 


530 JOHN McCLINTOCK. 


questions. We are to be baptized by water, and the form 
matters not; we are invited to communion with the Lord 
Jesus, and the materials are simple bread and wine. And 
if the sacrament is in that form, the other things are minor 
and of no importance. 

Let us contemplate the real substance of this sacrament 
for us as Christian people. 

I. The sacrament of the Lord’s Supper looks back upon 
the past, and in that sense is a memorial. 

II. It has relation to the present time and our present 
personal condition, and in this sense is a means of grace. 

III. It looks forward prophetically to the future, and in 
this sense is a pledge of everlasting life to all who worthily 
partake of it. 

I. This sacrament looks back upon the past, and in this 
sense is a memorial. It is a commemorative ordinance. 
Commemorative of—what? Of that for the very purpose 
of which it was instituted—the circumstances under which 
it was instituted. Ah, how apt we are to forget our bene- 
factors! How apt we are to forget even those that we love! 
Take that single sentence home now and see if it is not so. 
Ten or twenty years ago you buried some one out of your 
sight, and it seemed as if the very light of your life were 
gone—a light that could never come back again; and 
you said so—that it should be never more. And yet that 
loved image now stands away back in the distance, dim and 
shadowy, and it is only when some memorial, some type, 
some sign, some sacrament brings back the recollection, that 
the old love is felt. It is not gone, I admit; but we are so 
apt to forget. And so we forget our greatest benefactors. 
Mankind are prone to remember those that hurt them, 
rather than the benefactor who brings blessings at every step - 
of his path in life. 

Hack a tree with an axe, and the scar remains for ages. 
The circles that gather around in the effort of nature to 


IMPORT OF THE LORD’S SUPPER. 531 


obliterate it seem more and more to perpetuate it. But the 
care of the gardener who planted it, who watched and 
watered it, that is all forgotten. Soitis with men. Even that 
great sacrifice of Christ upon the cross, the purchase of our 
redemption by that bitter death, even the circumstances of that 
death itself, we are apt to forget unless perpetually reminded. 
And so, in this aspect, the very institution of the Lord’s 
Supper is a kind condescension on the part of God to our 
weakness and infirmity ; and whenever the Church adminis- 
ters the sacrament, whether once a month or once a week, 
it is intended as a sign, a memorial, a picture of the Lord 
Jesus, a painting of the crucifixion, a sculpture for us, if our 
imaginative faith be strong enough to take in all the scene 
upon Calvary. Nay, more, not merely a painting or statue, 
but bringing back again, if our eye of faith be strong enough 
to see it, the living, breathing, suffering, dying Saviour as 
he hung there upon the cross, with the blood still flowing 
through his veins and arteries strong and quick as in the 
flush of his manly life; then as it ebbed away and he became 
weaker and weaker, paler and paler, until at last he died. 
This sacrament is thus meant to be a memorial and bring 
back to us the day of our Saviour’s death, the nights of his ” 
humiliation in the grave. “This do in remembrance of 
me.” 

There is special fitness in the matter of the institution as 
well as in the form: in the bread and wine which constitute 
the matter of the sacraments. The bread—we take it, and 
it is broken, and we eat it; the wine—it is poured out, 
and we drink it. And what are these? The bread, how is 
it made? That bread cannot be-made for you every day as 
the nourishment for your physical frame, except at this 
expense: the beautiful grain must be taken at its maturity, 
the beautiful head of wheat must be rudely cut down, and 
then it passes into the hands of the laborer, or under the 
hoof of the horse, or beneath the thrashing-flail, or into 


532 JOHN McCLINTOCK. 


the pressure of the machine, until it is stripped of its husk, 

and life is entirely taken from it so far as outward and 
material instruments can do it, and then it is put between 
the upper and nether mill-stone and ground to powder. 

And that is not all. You must take it and cause the ele- 

ments of death to show themselves; the putrefaction of 

fermentation must begin before you can have the light, 

beautiful, life-preserving bread. And so with the wine. 

You cannot get the mantling wine, with its beautiful color 
and refreshing properties, except by taking the grape in the 
full blush of its bloom and richness, and cutting it from the 
vine, and subjecting it to pressure, and after that to fer- 
mentation, that out of destruction and death shall be brought 
the life-producing, life-preserving wine. 

So it is with our Lord and Saviour. He lived; but if he 
had only lived there would have been no life for us. He 
lived and died upon the cross that you and I might live; 
that is to say, this bread of God came down from heaven to 
be our nourishment. It had to be cut off in its full bloom, 
to be subject to the flail, to the pressure and power of the 
mill, to be ground between the upper and the nether mill- 
stone, to be laid in the grave, and the beginning of its cor- 
ruption to appear, and then its resurrection; and now it is 
possible for Christ to be the living bread coming down from 
heaven, and whoever eats of it shall live for evermore. The 
bread and the wine are alike emblematic of the strength 
which the Church receives, and through her each individual 
member, from this blessed communion with Christ, which we 
commemorate when we partake of the Supper of the Lord. 
So we commemorate his sorrows and sufferings in this way 
for our own sake. And howrich a blessing is it that such a 
commemoration is given ! 

And further, our faith in Christ is excited by these em- 
blems, as he is “evidently set forth among us crucified and 
slain.”” If we come to this sacrament remembering what 


IMPORT OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. 533 


this bread and wine are an emblem of, and our hearts are 
filled with it, this passage will be true, that here, as we sur- 
round the altar of God, ‘ Christ is visibly set forth among 
us crucified and slain,” for “visibly” is what is meant by 
the word “evidently” in the passage; the effect of the 
memorial being to bring us back to the cross, to bring the 
cross down to us. That is the effect of it if we come with 
a living and true faith to partake of the blessed sacrament. 
By this commemoration we feel the dripping blood of Christ 
as if we had sat under his cross; the anguish of those pains 
we feel as if we had seen them on Calvary. ‘The spear that 
pierced my Saviour’s side has rotted long ago; the cross on » 
which they hung him has passed away, gone into corruption ; 
but the water and blood that flowed on the piercing of his 
side by the soldier—the terror and anguish and pain that he 
endured upon that bitter cross—all these are as fresh as-if 
the cross had been reared but yesterday, and Christ hung 
upon it to-day. Our faith brings them to us, because the 
efficacy of that cross and of Christ’s redemption is an 
everlasting efficacy. 

There is another aspect of this commemorative feature of 
the sacrament to which I must call your attention: “As — 
often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye do show 
the Lord’s death till he come.”’ We show it as‘an historical 
testimony of the fact of his death. Every time the follow- 
ers of Jesus Christ gather around his table and partake of 
the bread and wine as emblems of his broken body and shed 
blood, they add an additional evidence to the truth of the 
Gospel history. This ordinance is a perpetual memorial and 
proof of the facts of Christ’s death, and the professed 
objects of it. Can you find a day in history, from the day 
of Christ’s institution of this sacrament the night before he 
died, on which it has not been observed? No single week 
has rolled away these eighteen hundred and thirty years— 
no single week has rolled away, since the hour of Christ’s 


534 JOHN McCLINTOCK. 


consecration of the bread and wine of this ordinance until 
now, in which there has not been a gathering to testify to 
this truth. There gather a few of them sadly and in tears 
within a few days after the death of the Saviour. They 
gather in stronger numbers and with stronger hopes after 
the day of Pentecost, and so the bread is broken and the 
wine poured out and Christ remembered, and his death 
borne witness to. So, then, brethren, we too are as histo- 
rical witnesses to the fact of Christ’s death, and every time 
we come here we add one new stone to the great fabric of 
Christian evidence, one new testimony to the truth of this 
Gospel. There is something, to my mind, very striking. and 
very beautiful in this one single evidence of the truth of 
Christianity—that you cannot point to any other beginning 
of this sacrament than that recorded, and that there is no 
stronger historical proof of any event than the commemora- 
tion in honor of it. Such is our fourth of July; and if it 
should be only celebrated as it is, once in each year, yet at 
the end of ten thousand years the force of it as a testimony 
would be just as great as it is now, unless some one could 
point to the day when it was instituted without foundation. 
In history testimony of this kind is considered better than 
almost any other. But we do more than this as witnesses, 
and not only testify to the fact of Christ’s death, but testify 
to it with praise and approbation. The cross of the Lord 
Jesus was to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks 
foolishness; but to us who believe, it is the power of God 
unto salvation; that is to say, as often as we eat of this 
bread and drink this wine, we show the death of the Lord 
until he come, and in coming around this altar we come to 
say, What? That the cross of Christ is no longer a stum- 
bling-block of foolishness, that to us the offence of the cross 
is taken away for ever; not merely that it is not offensive, 
but that it is our crowning glory that we have a right to 
come to it and say, with a higher emphasis than Paul said, 
‘J am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the 


IHPORT OF “THE LORDS SUPPER. 535 


power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth, to 
the Jew first, and also to the Greek.’ And when we sur- 
round this altar we come as witnesses to a fact and to the 
glory of a fact, each of us taking up the strain, and saying, 
“‘T joy and glory in the cross of Christ;’’ each one of us 
says, “I testify to the power of the religion of the Re- 
deemer ;” each one of us says as Paul says, and with a 
higher emphasis, ‘‘ God forbid that I should glory save in 
the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is 
crucified unto me, and I unto the world.”’ 

II. The second aspect of the sacrament is its relation to the 
present as a means of grace. Christ died, and we commemo- 
rate the sacrifice; but more than this, he rose again, and is 
with us here, a living Saviour. Bread and wine come again 
in types, types of the nourishment of life and its preserva- 
tion. We have in this sacrament the communion of his 
body and blood, which nourishes and. sanctifies us in this 
life and prepares us for everlasting life in heaven. 

The tree of life which stood in the garden of Eden was 
sacramental, and to eat of. the tree was the law of the pre- 
servation of life under the Adamic covenant. The covenant 
was this: ‘“‘Hat and thou shalt live. Here is the tree of. 
life; the matter of this sacrament is the fruit of this tree, 
and thou shalt eat of it and shalt live.’”’ When Adam was 
banished the sacrament was revoked; the tree of life was 
guarded by cherubim with flaming swords turning every 
way. But under the promise that Christ should come 
again, under all dispensations—Abrahamic and Mosaic— 
all the way along up to the time when Christ instituted the 
Lord’s Supper, you will find some sacrament, some sign 
between God and man. ‘The tree of paradise was the ante- 
type of the paschal blood that saved Israel’s first-born in 
the hour when the angel of death passed over Egypt; of the 
pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night; of the 
manna that sustained them in the desert, and of the pass- 
over established in the promised land and kept up until the 


536 JOHN McCLINTOCK. 


coming of the Lord Jesus. The sacrament of the Lord’s 
Supper was substituted for the passover. Christ our Pass- 
over is slain for us. All these were in their time means of 
grace, comforting and sustaining. The Israelite was likely 
to doubt the strength and willingness of God to carry him 
onward, but could be convinced by Moses suddenly pointing 
upward, ‘See there! behold that rising vapor as it curls 
above the marching millions of Israel, and then no longer 
doubt!” So in the hour of night and darkness the same 
leader and guide could tell him, ‘‘See there! behold that 
pillar of fire, beginning over the ark, ascending, and widen- 
ing as it ascends! That is the type and pledge of God’s 
promise to his people.’’ And ‘so in all ages the natural 
heart of man has seen in the rainbow spanning the sky the 
type of God’s attributes of mercy and grace, and all people 
in all ages have looked up to that unimaginable beauty as a 
sacrament between God and man, an assurance that God’s 
blessing should never more fail to mankind. 

In the Lord’s Supper we come to refresh ourselves more 
than the Israelites could in sight of the cloud and fire, and 
be fed more than they could by the manna, for our celestial 
manna is the bread of this sacrament, and whosoever eateth 
and drinketh in the name of the Lord Jesus eateth and drink- 
eth to his salvation. . ‘‘ The cup of blessing which we bless, 
is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread 
which we break, is it not the communion of the body of 
Christ?’ How can this be true? It is really and literally 
true that in coming to this communion Christ is actually 
and substantially to be partaken of by those who believe on 
him. Ido not mean that the bread and wine are turned 
into the physical body of the Lord Jesus. What a delusion 
that is that anything is substantial that can be seen and 
touched! The least substantial are those that can be seen 
or touched. The substance of this outward physical form 
is that which we cannot see. We do not even know what it 
is. ‘Take the substance of the oak wood or pine wood. 


PEP ORM OL. TH ie ORS OS P PIR: Sh yi 


You do not know what the substance of it is at all; you 
know certain outward properties which it possesses, but that 
is all. Christ is really and substantially present with his 
children in this sacrament. Though we do not see him, or 
eat of his body in a tangible and physical sense, or drink 
of his blood, yet we do really find our Saviour in those 
memorials of him. Let me illustrate this by a single case 
out of the Gospel. Our Saviour, passing through a great 
crowd of people, suddenly said, ‘‘ Who is it that touched 
me, for I find virtue has gone out of me?’ Yet no one had 
touched his person, his face, or hangs, or feet, or any part 
of his body. It was nothing but a poor woman who had 
taken hold of the outer edge of his long robe, perhaps four 
or five feet from his person; only the hem of his garment 
was touched, and yet the touch brought life to her, and the 
Saviour knew it, and said, ‘‘ Some one hath touched me.” 
So when we come to surround this table, and come so near 
to Christ as to take the emblems of his body and blood, we 
are nearer than to be touching the very hem of his garment. 
If we have faith to believe it, our Saviour is with us. 

We are nourished in our souls, in our love for him, in our 
purposes of good, and get ourselves strengthened to bear . 
the ills, temptations, and shocks of life, and to prepare for 
death and judgment. And so we have often found a means 
of grace in this communion. When our faith is strong in it 

“ Our spirits drink a fresh supply, 
And eat the bread so freely given, 
Till, borne on eagle’s wings, we fly, 
And banquet with our Lord in heaven.” 
If there be a doubting Thomas in the congregation who has 
never been able fully to realize our Lord, and has been 
going for years with his head bowed down, I say come to 
the communion, to the altar of God, if you are willing to 
seevHim. Do this in remembrance of Christ, and open your 
eyes, and you shall see the hole caused by the spear of the 
soldier, and put your hand in it; you shall see the wounds 


538 JOHN McCLINTOCK. 


in his hands and feet; you shall see him. with his body 
broken and crushed for you, and you shall be led to say, 
“My Lord and my God.’’ Come, and let this communion 
be for you the means of grace. How many have felt in sur- 
rounding this altar not only their own resolutions renewed, but 
the baptism of the Holy Ghost renewed, fresh power given to 
them, and that the mysterious manifestation of grace in the 
sacrament has renewed their, faith as followers of Christ ! 
III. Looking toward the future, we find in this sacrament a 
pledge of glory and everlasting life. ‘‘ He said unto them, 
With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you 
before I suffer: for I say unto you, I will not any more eat 
thereof, until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God. And 
He took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, Take this, and 
divide it among yourselves: for I say unto you, I will not 
drink of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God 
shall come.’ There Christ institutes this supper, and 
tells His followers that it is His supper and His supper of 
communion, but that he will drink it no more with them until 
the fulfilment of the kingdom of God. Then he will drink 
it and join them again in it; then an everlasting supper will 
be renewed—an everlasting supper of the Lamb—and not 
till then. ‘As often as ye eat this bread and drink this 
cup you do show the Lord’s death till He come.” That is 
to say, we are keeping up a memorial of it here in the wil- 
derness until He shall come again; until the wilderness shall 
blossom as the rose. And surely this communion is a pledge 
of that coming—a seal and assurance of it. As often as 
we partake of it we know that our Master shall come. He 
comes to us in the communion itself as a pledge of that last 
coming. More than this, the Lord’s Supper is to last until 
His coming, but no longer. We are not to have it in this 
shape in heaven. It is a memorial of Christ’s coming. 
Whenever a pledge is given it is given as security that a 
certain contract shall be performed, and when it is per- 
formed the pledge is given up. So it shall be with the 


PORT OF THEN OR DAS SUP PE RB: 539 


Lord’s Supper; when Christ’s kingdom is come the Lord’s 
Supper shallend. But what shall take its place? The Lord’s 
Supper is a pledge and earnest of the marriage feast of the 
Lamb. ‘And I heard as it were the voice of a great multi- 
tude,’ writes John on the Island of Patmos, “and as the voice 
of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, say- 
ing, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Let us 
be glad and rejoice, and give honor to him: for the mar- 
riage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself 
ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed 
in fine linen, clean and white, for the fine linen is the righteous- 
ness of saints. And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are 
they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb.” 

Every time we surround this altar and partake of the 
Lord’s Supper we have a pledge, a foretaste and assurance 
of that great marriage supper of the Lamb, an invitation to 
which shall be the crowning glory of every redeemed soul. 
Oh, to be sure of that invitation! Oh, to be sure of the 
wedding-garment ! that when these guest tables are prepared, 
and these viands of heaven are set out by celestial servitors, 
when the fruits of the immortal garden are for the Lord’s 
army, and the vines of the heavenly vineyards have been -. 
pressed by the Lord’s husbandmen, and the everlasting 
bread of the kingdom of glory shall be set out on the golden 
plates and dishes of that great banqueting-house, that I may 
be called, and my seat be ready, that I may have only to 
come at the sound of the last trump and obey the willing 
impulse of my own regenerated and redeemed soul; that 
my ears may be open to listen when that sound which shall 
wake the dead to life shall burst upon the darkness and 
silence! Then the angels shall carry me to the entrance 
of that great banqueting-hall, and I shall rise with the 
marriage festal garments on me, ready to enter in! This 
is what the Lord pledges me when I partake of it, and what 
he pledges you; the assurance of redemption and the pledge 
of immortal life. 


XXXV. 
THE GOVERNMENT OF THE TONGUE. 


GOULBURN. 

[Epwarp Meyrick Goutsurn, D.D., a distinguished living minister 
in the Established Church of England, and one of the royal chaplains, 
held the mastership of Rugby School in early life. In 1850 he de- 
livered a series of the Bampton Lectures—a famous course instituted 
to develop the doctrines and evidences of Christianity ;—and he was 
lately installed Dean of Norwich. His writings comprise: ‘ The Idle 
Word,” short religious essays on the gift and right use of speech ; 
‘Acts of the Deacons,’’ treating of Stephen the protomartyr and 
Philip the evangelist ; ‘‘ Office of the Holy Communion,” and “ Thoughts 
on Personal Religion.’’ These are characterized by a spirit of fervid 
and practical piety, manifested with a transparency of thought and 
language. This Sermon, preached in Rugby School Chapel, sum- 
marizes the teachings of the first work. | 


“ For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, 
the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body. Be- 
hold, we put bits in the horses’ mouths, that they may obey us; and we 
turn about their whole body. Behold also the ships, which though they 
be so great, and are driven of fierce winds, yet are they turned about 
with a very small helm, whithersoever the governor listeth.’’—James iii. 
2-4. 


Tue Apostle is speaking, in these verses, of the govern- 
ment of the Tongue. 
- And he says-of the government of the Tongue two dis- 
tinct things, which are not to be confounded together,—both 
strong things to say, but the latter stronger than the former. 

First, he says that the degree in which a man governs his 
Tongue is an index of his whole moral state. An index. 
The hands of a watch, or the projection on a sundial, are an 
index, by which you may ascertain the progress of time, or 
in other words, how much of his course in the heavens the 

(540) 


GOVERNMENT OF THE TONGUE. 541 


sun has accomplished. The sun (or rather the earth in its 
diurnal revolution) travels silently and without noise. In 
order to be advertised at any moment of the sun’s exact 
stage of progress, we create an artificial index—the watch, 
or the dial,—which reports that progress with accuracy. 
Similarly, our moral life, though always moving either for- 
ward or backward (for, my brethren, it is a solemn truth that 
there is no standing still in moral life), yet moves slowly and 
imperceptibly ; as we cannot see the sun moving (although 
after it has moved, we note that it is in a different quarter 
of the heavens), so we cannot see ourselves growing better | 
or worse (although, after a lapse of time, we may take notice 
that we are more or less good than we were a year or six 
months ago). It is desirable, therefore, to have an exact: 
index, by recurring to which, we may ascertain our moral 
progress. And this index, the Apostle says, is the Tongue. 
That is the thought of verse 2. Keep it distinct in your 
minds. 

But something more than this,—a further, and stronger 
statement,—is yet behind. 

The government or non-government of the Tongue is not 
only an index. It is also a determining instrument. It is 
spoken of under the images of a bit anda rudder. Now 
what is a bit ?—-an instrument which determines the course 
of a horse, which makes him turn to the right or to the left, 
which, if loose in his mouth, leaves him to a free and speedy 
action, and, if drawn tight, arrests his progress. Just so a 
rudder with a ship;—it is the guiding instrument of the 
vessel’s course. With the rudder you may turn the ship at 
a moment’s notice as you please, but the guidance of a vessel 
which has lost her rudder, by the sails, is at all times a very 
difficult and dangerous matter,—not likely to prosper in any 
but the most expert hands. 

Now this image, you observe, is an advance upon the 
index. The hands of the watch, and the index of the dial, 


542 EDWARD NM. GOULBURN. 


do not determine the Sun’s course, nor have they the slightest 
influence upon it. They mark and announce its progress ; 
but they in no way bias its course, as the helm biasses the 


course of the ship, and the bit biasses the course of the horse. | 


Now, then; I will say a word on these two great topics— 
the Tongue as the index of our moral career, and the Tongue 
as the governing instrument of our moral career. 

To those of you who are striving to be holy, and to imitate 
the example of our Saviour, do I now address myself. And 
I pray that what I say may be made, by God, the means of 
helping you in that pursuit. 

First, the Tongue as an index. ‘If any man offend not 
in word, the same is a perfectman, and able also to bridle 
the whole body.” Only one perfect Man ever existed; and 
of Him—in perfect accordance with the principle here laid 
down by the Apostle—it is written, not only that He did no 
sin, but also that “no guile was found in His mouth,” that 
‘when He was reviled, He reviled not again; when He suf- 
fered, He threatened not,’’—and, in another place, that ‘ full 
of grace were His lips.” The words of the text are not to 
be taken as implying that any man (except Him) is, in the 
judgment of God, perfect, but simply as asserting that the 
more closely any one approximates to perfection, the more 
vigilantly will he be found to govern his tongue, so that his 


performance of this duty supplies an accurate touchstone of 


his advance in holiness. 

And this will become quite obvious if we reflect, first, that 
to govern the tongue is a task so difficult, that he who has 
grace to accomplish 7t, has grace to accomplish anything. 
The exceeding great difficulty of governing the tongue con- 
sists principally in the great scope there is for going wrong. 
Other temptations only have scope for their enticements 
occasionally. When aman is in health and spirits, friends all 
around him, and affluence and prosperity his portion, he has 
no temptation to murmur. When he is poor, and obliged to 


GOVERNMENT OF THE TONGTE. 543 


toil hard for a day’s livelihood, there is no great scope for 
self-indulgence. If he lives a very retired life, and comes 
into little or no collision with society, of course his temper 
and courtesy are not tried. If he is obliged to be busy about 
"a work which demands close attention of the mind, there is 
no avenue by which an unclean thought can insinuate itself. 
But because the business of life cannot be carried on without 
speaking, there is always ample verge and scope enough for 
offences of the tongue. In our least talkative day, the words 
which we speak from morning to night, if written down, would 
almost fill a volume. Speech is continually passing from us 

by a thousand avenues of occasion,—we want something, or 
desire information, or have some intelligence to communicate, 
or wish to please, or must do something to while away time, 
or to vent our feelings of irritation and peevishness. Even 
the reasonable and necessary occasions of speech—the occa- 
sions, on which without speech the business of society could 
not be carried on, are very, very numerous. 

So that the reason why the government of the Tongue is 
more arduous than any other duty, is the reason why it is 
more difficult for a military commander to maintain a town 
which has a thousand outlets, than one which is only acces- 
sible at two or three points. In the latter case the garrison 
may be concentrated at the two or three vulnerable points. 
In the former, they must be dispersed in weak handfuls at 
the various outlets. Of course we gather with certainty that, 
if the force suffices to maintain the city with many approaches, 
it will suffice to maintain the city with few. And the Word 
of God (all whose reasonings are, if I may say so, the rea- 
sonings of Inspired Common Sense) infers upon the same 
principle that he who can stand against sin successfully, 
where the avenues of temptation are numerous, can stand 
also where they are few. ‘If any man offend not in word, 
the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole 


body.” : 


544 EDWARD M. GOULBURN. 


But now for a second reason why the tongue should be an 
accurate index of the moral state. Offences of the tongue 
are thought so little of by mankind in general, that he who 
is strict with himself here will be strict with himself, we may 
be sure, in all departments of duty. If he thinks gravely 
of wrong words, he cannot think lightly of wrong actions. 
You know how very little importance men generally attach 
to sins of the tongue—how strangely their judgment on this 
point is contrasted with that of Him who said,—“ Every idle 
word which men shall speak, they shall give account thereof 
in the day of judgment.” Is not the tendency of our minds 
to reason thus—‘‘ A hasty word, vented in a moment of 
excitement—a slight misrepresentation, a profane joke, an 
impure innuendo,—why it is all empty breath,—nothing 
serious is intended by it, and a man may be a very good man, 
who indulges in such words occasionally ’’? Such is the pre- 
valent notion. It is radically erroneous. It is wholly con- 
trary to God’s Word. It is probably glanced at in the third 
Commandment, where, after forbidding the taking His Name 
in vain, a sin which could not find place except in the exer- 
cise of the tongue, the Divine Legislator solemnly adds— 
“ The Lord will not hold him guiltless”’ (oh, verdict of the 
world, how wilt thou shrivel up into insignificance when God 
reveals His Judgment at the last day !}—“‘ The Lord will 
not hold him guiltless that taketh His Name in vain.” But 
however, such is the sad fact, that men do take a very light 
view of sins of the tongue, very much lighter than they do 
of other violations of duty. Now, if a man should be found, 
who, in his own case, takes a very grave view of this subject, 
watches and weighs his words strictly, and rejects scrupu- 
lously all that it comes into his mind to say, which would not 
tend either to some good end or to innocent amusement,— 
it is impossible, is it not, that that man should be a careless 
liver? The care of his words is the index of a general care 


GOVERNMENT OF THE TONGUE. 545 


over what men reckon more important than words,—actions, 
and feelings. 

Then the point seems to be proved by reason, as well as 
asserted in Scripture, that an accurate index of a man’s 
entire moral ‘condition is supplied by the government of his 
Tongue. Weigh it well. Just as you resort to the sundial 
or the watch for the reckoning of time, so in your spiritual 
reckoning, in your acts of Self-Examination, you may con- 
sult the index of the tongue, with the assurance that it will 
give no untrue verdict. ‘To persons disposed to engage 
seriously in that arduous work, and yet beset (as we all are — 
here) with manifold business,—this thought may really be a 
material assistance. You wish to examine your whole moral 
character and life? Examine the words of the past day,— 
they may be a sufficient criterion. Have you been watchful 
over them, or have you let them slip, without reflection, from 
your mouth? Have you governed them—that is, inspected 
them before utterance, rejected one, approved another, 
chastised a third, and so on? or, have you thrown the reins 
of self-discipline down, and let them take their course ? 

I am sure, from reason and the Word of God, that this 
will be a true index; that it will never give an inaccurate 
verdict. But oh! is not this an alarming thought to many 
of you? Ought it not at once to awaken you to the truth 

of your state, as with trumpet call? or there are very 
many of you who, so long as you do not go wrong in your 
lives, give yourselves no concern at all about your words. 
They may be good this hour, and bad the next, so far as 
your superintendence is concerned,—for you never think of 
controlling them. And if vigilance over the words be, as 
God asserts it to be, the criterion of vigilance over the life 
—what is the conclusion? What, but that you are taking 
no heed to administer your general conduct after the precepts 
of God, and give, therefore, the surest proof that, whatever 

18 2M 


546 EDWARD M. GOULBURN. 


outward privileges may attach to your lot, you have no 
spiritual life dwelling in you? | 

But now to turn to the other image. The tongue is not 
only the index, but the determining instrument also of our 
moral state. It not only points out, but regulates,—as the 
bit regulates the horse, and the helm the ship. This position 
is equally apparent, when we come to examine it, with the 
former. 

Take, as an example, the case of temper. A man has a 
strong temper, exceedingly irritable, and hard to overcome. 
If he is a man with no self-discipline, this temper bursts forth 
continually, and renders himself, and all around him, miser- ~ 
able. He is sensible of its mastery, and in his cool moments, 
deplores it. Well, there is one obvious rule of wisdom which, 
if he clings to it steadfastly, will, by God’s Grace, enable 
him to curb the unruly passion. He complains that he can- 
not control his feelings,—they are like a fretful steed, too 
much for his rider, and they bear him away whither they 
list. Granted (for argument’s sake) that he cannot control 
his feelings ;—can he not control his words? Can he not, 
if he pleases, refrain from speaking? or if he pleases, utter 
a conciliatory expression? Let him go into society, after 
prayer for the aid of God’s Spirit, with a steadfast reso- 
lution, that come what may—slight, or ridicule, or insult— 
and feel what he may,—he, at all events, will not say a single 
irritating or irritable word. I will suppose him, by God’s 
grace, to keep his resolution. What is the result? The 
result is, that the trial, if it comes at all, does not last very 
long. If the other party is not really bent on provocation, 
the whole feeling passes off—perhaps veers right round in 
another direction——as this want of intention becomes appa- 
rent. And if he is bent on provocation, he soon wearies of 
it when he is met by soft words that turn away wrath,—he 
begins to respect the principle which he instinctively feels to 
be at the root of this moderation,—perhaps he ends by 


GOVERNMENT OF THE TONGUE. 547 


acknowledging the fault, and expressing regret,—an issue 
which insures an entire conversion of feeling towards him in 
the mind of the other. Whereas what would an angry 
retort have done? It would simply have ministered fuel for 
irritation to both minds. 

Again, as regards secret pride. Pride is a swelling 
haughty steed, who will bear away triumphant all who minis- 
ter occasion to it. And occasion will be ministered to it by 
words—by talking too much about self—whether in the way 
of self-gratulation, or in the way of self-depreciation. Iam 
sure that language of the latter description really feeds and 
nourishes secret pride, and if much indulged in, will probably 
render it ungovernable. Avoid, by all means, speaking 
humbly of yourself to any one except to Him who seeth in 
secret. The reason is this,—pride is so inwoven into the 
very texture of our nature, that our feelings are very rarely 
indeed humble. Now, 2f there be humility of expression, 
where there is no humility of feeling, that is the worst species 
of hypocrisy. But humble words are not only evil in them- 
selves,—they excite evil. We derive a kind of satisfaction, 
when using them, from the reflection that we are humble,— 
we become inwardly proud of our humility. The safest rule” 
(and that which is most consistent with courtesy and good 
breeding) will be to obtrude self as little as possible on 
the company—to speak as little as possible about self, in 
order that (oh, hard attainment!) we may think as little as 
possible about self. All words of self-praise, all words of 
self-depreciation, forbidden—if this rule be minded, it will 
prove the restraining of many a spark, which else might fall 
upon and kindle the explosive material of pride. 

Again: as to that desire, natural to every man, of making 
himself entertaining and agreeable in the society in which 
he moves. 

This desire, if not restrained, often leads us to say things 
which were better unsaid,—to give point to-some of our con- 


548 EDWARD MN. GOULBURN. 


versation by a jest which is questionable, or to be bitterly 
sarcastic, or, at least, to exaggerate and misrepresent the 
truth. One objectionable remark, especially if successful in 
exciting wonder or amusement, is enough to ensnare us. The 
strong desire then becomes, like the horse whose rein is 
slackened, uncontrollable. We must then perforce go on in 
the career on which we have entered, and trick out our story 
with embellishments, without regard to the feelings of our 
neighbor, the interests of truth, or the Majesty of God’s 
presence. Therefore that original error,—that first remark, 
which made the tongue too hot to hold,—had better have 
been restrained. And to restrain such remarks is utterly 
impossible without bitting the horse, without exercising a 
continual restraint upon that little member, which boasteth 
great things. 

I need not dwell, because that is so evident, upon the 
awful ascendency which unclean desire gains over a man who 
allows himself to use impure language. Such a person is 
indeed, by the practice of telling forth the abominations 
which exist in his heart, feeding and pampering a viper, the 
poison of whose fangs will speedily spread itself, to his eter- 
nal ruin, through his whole soul. ‘This is a subject to be 
meditated upon in secret, rather than to be spoken of in 
public. Suffice it that I have called your attention in that 
direction, and warned those who are willing to give heed. 

It will have occurred, perhaps, to some of you, that in 
inculcating so strict a government of the tongue—(and by 
consequence so continual a watchfulness over it)—we have 
been investing Religion with a garb of gloom and austerity, 
and robbing it of all mirth and lightness of heart. I must 
speak, of course, without fear of consequences, what the Lord 
puts into my mouth ; but God forbid that I should represent 
Religion to you as at all alien to pure enjoyment or inno- 
cent mirth. Wisdom’s ways are pleasantness and peace. 
And let me say distinctly, that I am not forbidding any 


GOVERNMENT OF THE TONGUE. 549 


words but such as God’s Law pronounces to be evil. Inno- 
cent mirth and gayety, laughter at that which cannot wound 
another person, and is not wrong, and is not profane—so far 
from being an evil, is in a social (nay, in a religious) point 
of view a decided good. And a dull or moping spirit wil- 
fully cherished, would be as contrary to the spirit of the 
Gospel as it is to our natural inclinations. Christ has done 
all for us, if we be His true followers,—has relieved us of 
the load of guilt, of corrupt inclinations, of carking care. 
If the great Burden-bearer bore those burdens for us, why 
are we to bear them ourselves? Why, if I can only realize 
these great things,—why should not a well of joy and thank- - 
fulness spring up within me, which shall make the heart ever 
merry and the countenance ever shining, and the mind 
accessible to all possible enjoyments which are pure? 

Besides, one of the objects for which the tongue was given, 
is recreation; and this object would be frustrated, and life 
would not be relieved of its manifold little burdens, if con- 
versation were not occasionally brightened with merriment. 
WE HAVE BEEN ADVOCATING CONTINUAL WATCHFULNESS, 
NOT CONTINUAL SERIOUSNESS, OF WORDS. 

Finally: some will think that I have been dealing after 
all with petty duties, and that your time might have been 
occupied better with matters of more moment. In that case 
I must go back to my authorities :—“ If any man among you 
seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth 
his own heart, this man’s religion is vain.” I have not said 
anything more serious about words than St. James and Our 
Blessed Lord say. Besides, the notion of not dealing with 
small duties is philosophically unsound. Life is made up of 
‘small things, small duties, small sins, small temptations, 
small troubles, small fragments of happiness. It has been 
much upon my mind lately, that to neglect these same small 
things is the height of folly,—that it is only through acquit- 
ting ourselves well on small occasions, that we can make a 


550 EDWARD M. GOULBURN. 


sure progress in holiness, and discipline ourselves for grap- 
pling with poverty, bereavement, calls of Providence, arduous 
posts of responsibility, and all the great occasions of life. 
The man who waits for a great emergency, or a fine oppor- 
tunity, to show and approve his religion, is in a fair way, I 
think, never to have any religion at all. And, therefore, it 
was that last Sunday I warned you to give heed to the good 
conduct of each day, as it presents itself,—assured that from 
the good conduct of days, the good conduct of years would 
follow. | 

And, therefore, it is, that I now warn you to give heed 
to your words. I tell you, on God’s authority, that care 
over the words is the very secret and key of care over the 
life. Here 1 recommend you to bestow a great deal of study 
and attention,—with the assurance that it will not be thrown 
away. And, above all, I recommend you to pray, that God 
would so fill your soul at every moment with the thought of 
the Majesty of His Presence, as to make the restraint of 
wrong words an easy task to you-—ay, and to convert that 
restraint into an act of continual Worship. 


ROO NIE 
MAN CONVERTED. 


L GUTHRIE. 

[The editor of ‘The Sunday Magazine,’ THomas Gururiz, D.D., 
has a sturdiness of judgment wonderfully tempered by a passionate- 
ness of imagination, which—as the lightning-flash in a dark sky—lights 
up into visible being the obscurest recesses of thought. He was born 
at Brechin, Forfarshire, in 1803, studied for the ministry at St. An- 
drew’s University, and in 1837 took charge of the Old Greyfriars 
parish in Edinburgh. In this poverty-stricken district, his philan- 
thropic labors and practical aptitude for social reforms worked 
wonders. His appeals, by voice and pen, led to the founding of 
Ragged Schools, for the free teaching of poor children throughout the 
kingdom. In the formation of the Free Church, he actively co-opera- 
ted with Dr. Chalmers. For entrancing and affecting power of illus- 
tration, his Sermons on ‘‘'The Gospel in Ezekiel” are unexcelled. | 


“ A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within 
you; and Iwill take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will 
give you an heart of flesh.’’—Ezekiel xxxvi. 26. 


It is a happy thing that baptism is not the door of 
heaven ;—happy for millions who, dying in earliest infancy, 
never pass that way. Dying unbaptized, we hold that they 
die not on that account unsaved; for whoever dare hang 
God’s mercy on any outward rite, we do not, and although 
we believe that this interesting ordinance is also, when 
engaged in with faith, an eminently blessed one, we dare 
not. Thousands go to heaven without baptism. Thousands, 
alas! perish with it. Heaven is greatly made up of little 
children—sweet buds that have never blown, or which death 
has plucked from a mother’s bosom to lay on his own cold 
breast, just when they were expanding, flower-like, from the 


sheath, and opening their engaging beauties‘in the budding 
(551) 


552 THOMAS GUTHRIE. 


time and spring of life. ‘Of such is the kingdom of 
heaven.’ How sweet these words by the cradle of a dying 
infant! They fall like balm drops on our bleeding heart, 
when we watch the ebbing of that young life, as wave after 
wave breaks feebler, and the sinking breath gets lower and 
lower, till with a gentle sigh, and a passing quiver of the 
lip, our child now leaves its body, lying like an angel asleep, 
and ascends to the beatitudes of heaven and the bosom of 
God. Indeed, it may be that God does with his heavenly 
garden as we do with our own gardens. He may chiefly 
stock it from nurseries, and select for transplanting what is 
yet in its young and tender age—flowers before they have 
bloomed, and trees ere they begin to bear. 

In the words of the Westminster Catechism, ‘ Baptism is 
a sacrament, wherein the washing with water in the name 
of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, doth 
signify and seal our ingrafting into Christ, and partaking 
of the benefits of the covenant of grace, and our engage- 
ment to be the Lord’s.”” Baptism attaches us to the visible 
church; admits to that, and is its door of entrance; but, 
while it unites to the body of professing believers, it does 
not of necessity form any living attachment between us and 
the Saviour. Let us see what is done in these ordinances. 

Years ago a man stood up in the house of God, and in 
his arms there lay a sleeping child. Dipping his hand into 
a laver, the minister sprinkled some drops on the infant’s 
face, and over the unconscious creature pronounced the 
names of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. That child was 
you. By hands, now mouldering in the grave, your father 
then tied you—so to speak—to Christ. Well, time rolls on, 
and infants grow into children, children shoot up into 
youths, and youths change into bearded men; and then 
there comes another day. A table is spread in the house of 
God. Like the shroud in which kind women swathed his 
sacred body, a linen cloth covers the memorials of Christ’s 


MAN CONVERTED. 553 


death. The broken body is uncovered, the commemoration 
begins; and, amid the stillness of that solemn scene, with 
thoughtful countenance, a man leaves his seat, and taking 
the bread, and raising the wine-cup in his hand, he dedicates 
himself to the Saviour. That man again is you. And now 
awake, not asleep, conscious of what is done, not passive 
but active now, with your own hands you cast another knot 
upon the cord by which your father-years ago bound you to 
Jesus. You are now tied—doubly tied—yet it does not 
follow that you are yet engrafted into him. 

I have seen a branch tied to the bleeding tree, for the 
purpose of being engrafted into its wounded body, and that 
thus both might be one. Yet no incorporation had followed ; 
there was no living union. Spring came singing, and with 
her fingers opened all the buds; and summer came, with her 
dewy nights and sunny days, and brought out all the 
flowers; and brown autumn came to shake the trees and 
reap the fields, and with dances and mirth to hold “ harvest 
home ;” but that unhappy branch bore no fruit, nor flower, 
nor even leaf. Just held on by dead clay and rotting cords, 
it stuck to the living tree—a withered and unsightly thing. 
So alas! is it with many; “having a name to live they are 
dead.’ They have no faith; they want that bond of living 
union between the graft and what it is grafted on—between 
the sinner and the Saviour. And, therefore, in quitting 
this part of our subject for another, let me ask, ‘ believest 
thou?” and if thou dost not, O, let me urge you to pray 
with the man in the Gospel, ‘‘ Lord, help mine unbelief !”’ 

Do you say, I cannot believe? In one sense, that is 
true; in another, it is not. It is not true in the same sense 
as it 1s true that a man who has no eyes in his head— 
nothing but empty sockets—cannot see. All men are born 
with faith. Faith is as natural to a man as grief, or love, 
or anger. One of the earliest flowers that springs up in the 
~soul—it smiles on a mother from her infant’s cradle; and | 


554 THOMAS GUTHRIE. 


living on through the rudest storms of life, it never dies till 
the hour of death. On the face of a child which has been 
left for a little time with strangers, and may be caressed 
with their kisses, and courted with their smiles, and fondled 
and dandled in their arms, I have seen a cloud gathering 
and growing darker, till at length it burst in cries of terror 
and a shower of tears. The mother returns; and when the 
babe holds out its little arms to her, I see in these the arms 
of faith ; and when, like a believer restored to the bosom of 
his God, it is nestling in a mother’s embrace, and the cloud 
passes from its brow, and its tears are changed into smiles, 
and its terror into calm serenity, we behold the principle of 
faith in play. ‘This is one of its earliest, and—so far as 
nature is concerned—one of its most beautiful developments. 
So natural, indeed, is it for us to confide, and trust, and 
believe, that a cliild believes whatever it is told, until expe- 
rience shakes its confidence in human veracity. Its eye is 
caught by the beauty of some flower, or it gazes up with 
wonder on the starry heavens ;—with that inquisitiveness 
which in childhood, active as a bee, is ever on the wing, it is 
curious to know who made them, and would believe you if 
you said you made them yourself. . Such is the faith which 
nature gives it in a father, that it never doubts his word. 
It believes all he says, and is content. to believe where it is 
not able to comprehend. For this, as well as other reasons, 
our Lord presented, in a child, the living model of a Christ- 
ian. He left Abraham, father of the faithful, to his repose 
in heaven; he left Samuel, undisturbed, to enjoy the quiet 
rest of his grave; he allowed Moses and Hlias, after their 
brief visit, to return to the skies, and wing their way back 
to glory. For a pattern of faith, he took a boy from his 
mother’s side, and setting him up in his gentle, blushing, 
shrinking modesty, before the great assembly, he said, 
‘Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little » 
child, shall in no wise enter therein.” 


MAN CONVERTED. 555 


Paul said, ‘When I was a child I spake as a child, I 
thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away 
childish things;’’ but no man ever thought of leaving the 
faith of childhood with its rattle and its toys. Faith is, in 
fact, the soul and life of friendship. What is a friend, but 
one whom I can trust, one who, I believe, will mingle his 
tears with mine, and whose support I reckon on when my 
back is at the wall? Without faith in each other’s friend- 
ship, kindness, and honesty, this world would be turned into 
a Bedouin desert; men would become Ishmaelites ;—my 
hand against every man, and every man’s hand against me. 
Faith is the marriage tie; the guardian angel of conjugal 
felicity; the jewelled zone that binds society together; the 
power, mightier than steam, or wind, or water, that moves 
all the wheels of commeree. Unless man could trust his 
fellow-man, business would come to a dead stand; the whole 
machinery of the world would stop; our busy streets would 
bear crops of grass; and, though winds blew and tides 
flowed as before, rotting ships would fall to pieces in our 
silent and deserted harbors. 

Leaving the busy city for rural scenes, or setting your 
foot on board ship, and pushing out upon the heaving ocean, 
you find faith ploughing the fields of both—faith in the laws 
of nature, in the ordinances of Providence. When the air 
has still a frosty breath, and, although cleared of winter 
snow, the earth is cold and—looks dead as a corpse disrobed 
of its shroud—it shows neither flower nor leaf, nor sign of 
life, the husbandman, notwithstanding, yokes his team and 
drives the ploughshare through its breasts. With confidence 
in his step, liberality in his hand, and hope in his eye, he 
scatters the seed far and wide on the bosom of the ground. 
He is a believer; a believer in Providence——in the laws and 
procession of the seasons. He has faith; not saving faith 
indeed, but still true faith. He believes that out’ of these 
frosty skies gentle zephyrs shall blow, and soft showers shall 


556 ; THOMAS GUTHRIE. 


fall, and summer beams shall shine; and, looking along the 
vista of time, he sees golden corn waving thick upon these 
empty fields, and hears in this silent scene the joy of light 
hearts ringing in the laugh and song of the reapers. His 
ploughing and his sowing are acts of genuine faith; and, as 
he strides across the field with his sowing sheet around him, 
he is an example of one who, with his eye as well as his foot 
on earth, “‘ Walks by faith, not by sight.”’ 

Then again, sailing as much as sowing is an act of faith. 
In this rough and weather-beaten mariner, on board whose 
ship we are dashing through the thick gloom of a starless 
night, and over the waves of a pathless ocean, I see faith 
standing at the helm. That man has faith in the needle; 
and believing that the heart of an angel is not more true to 
God than this needle to the north, he presses forward over 
the watery waste in a voyage that may with perfect truth be 
called a voyage of faith. Would to God we had as strong 
a faith in our Bible! Would to God that our trembling 
hearts pointed as true to Jesus as this needle, in all weathers 
and on all seas, to the distant pole! What we want divine 
grace to do, is not so much to give us faith as to give to the 
principle or faculty of faith, which we have by nature, a 
right, holy, heavenward direction; to convert it into faith 
in things eternal. The faith that sees an unseen world—a 
faith just as strong in the revelations of the Bible as in the 
ordinary laws. of nature, this is what we need. Let it be 
sought in earnest, persevering prayer. It is “the gift of - 
God.” Saving faith has God for its author, the Spirit for 
its agent, Christ for its object, grace for its root, holiness 
for its fruit, and heaven for its reward. Accepting the 
righteousness of Christ, it makes us just; and seeing every 
sin pardoned, all guilt removed, God smiling, and heaven 
opening to receive us, it is the spring of a peace of mind 
which is worth more than the wealth of worlds, which 
passeth all understanding. May God help us to the con- 


MAN CONVERTED. 557 


fession and the prayer, ‘Lord I believe, help thou mine 
unbelief.”’ : 

We have already stated that while salvation was the one 
thing needful, there were two things needful for salvation. 
Having considered the first of these, namely, the remission 
of sin and justification of the sinner, we now enter on the 
second, namely, the renovation of the soul as enunciated in 
the words, ‘‘ A new heart also will I give you, and a new 
spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the stony 
heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.” 
And we remark— 

I. This is a great change. Not that all men think so. 
Once on a time, for instance, we wandered into a church in 
this city. The preacher read these words for his text, 
‘“‘Hxcept a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom 
of God.” And just as at the fords of Jordan, they knew 
a man’s country by the way he sounded Shibboleth, so you 
will never fail to know a man’s creed by the way in which 
he handles such a passage as that. The preacher read his 
text; and then, as it were, sat down by the cradle, where 
his charge was sleeping to rock them over into a deeper 
slumber. The text, forsooth, was an oriental figure! a 
hyperbole! pointing to an outward change. No more was 
needed. In the strong and highly figurative language which 
eastern nations indulge in, it described the change under- 
- gone by the man who abandons a wild and wicked life for 
habits of decency, honesty, and temperance. Far be it 
from me to speak lightly of temperance societies, or of any 
scheme, indeed, that aims at the dignity and elevation of 
man; yet, according to the preacher, our Lord’s language 
meant nothing more than the change which these institutions 
are of themselves able to accomplish—a change of habits 
without any gracious change of heart. Did a drunkard 
become sober? he was born again; a libertine pure? or 
thief honest ? or liar true? he was born again! In short, 


DOS 4. THOMAS GUTHRIE. 


such was the style and character of the discourse, that if a 
poor, hungry soul had gone there for bread, he could have 
got nothing—carried away nothing—but a stone; and 
instead of a fish, we saw the serpent’s coil, and heard her 
hiss. The preacher taught that these words were applicable 
only to the scum and off-scourings of the city—the dregs of 
society—those poor, depraved, degraded creatures who, 
weighed down by a load of poverty, and ignorance, and 
guilt, have sunk to the bottom, and to our shame, are left 
to lie there in distressing and dreadful pollution. So far as 
any congregation of decent, well-dressed, sober, honest, 
reputable professors of religion were concerned, that truth 
had no bearing on them; our Lord—although he assuredly 
found in Nicodemus. one of this class—did not speak of 
them; they, happy mortals! had no need to be born again. 

You cannot fancy any two things more opposed to each 
other than that doctrine and ours. We believe that the 
purest, gentlest, loveliest, most amiable creature that blesses 
fond parents, and adorns earth’s happiest home—one of 
nature’s fairest flowers—stands as much in need of a new 
birth as the vilest outcast who walks these streets—the lost 
one, whose name is never mentioned but by broken hearts 
and,in wrestling prayers to God. The best of mankind are 
so bad that all have need to be born again; so bad that the 
change promised in the text, and insisted on by our Saviour, 
cannot be a surface or superficial matter,—any mere 
defilement of the skin which nitre and soap may remove. 
Words have no meaning unless this change is a radical 
reform—a change great in its character, and lasting in its 
consequences—a change which, affecting not the habits only 
but the heart, both reaches downward into the deepest 
recesses of the soul, and stretches forward into the ages of 
eternity. | 

Now, I am afraid that some—dreaming, as they slumber, 
that they have been born again, and so are safe because 


MAN CONVERTED. 559 


their conduct is changed, and because, so far as their mere 
habits are concerned, they are better than once they were— 
have gone to sleep before this work is even begun. Beware 
of rash conclusions of such momentous importance. Have 
we not seen passions, like the fire upon the hearth, burn out 
and die for want of fuel? Have we not seen the course of 
vice, like a worn-out machine, stop from the decays of 
nature—from the mere wear and tear of its materials? 
Virtue is cheap; vice is costly; and, proving a heavy tax 
upon the purse, destructive of health and damaging to 
character, we have seen self-interest turn a man from the - 
indulgence of his strongest vices. Old age cools hot blood. 
Successive bereavements will in a way break the heart, and 
some deep disappointment may wean those who have the 
keenest appetite for its pleasures, from the gayeties and 
vanities of the world. And, as in Roman Catholic countries, 
many a cowled monk, and many a veiled nun, enters convent 
or monastery more from feelings of disappointment than 
devotion ; so, when hopes are blasted, and pride is mortified, 
and ambition has missed her mark, you may get sick of the 
world. Alas! all who bid adieu to the ball-room and 
theatre, and giddy round of fashion, do not leave the circle 
of their enchantments for the closet, for the sanctuary, for 
fields of Christian benevolence. As-by sleight of hand and 
necromantic trick, Egypt's magicians produced a set of 
mimic miracles that were clever counterfeits of those which 
God wrought by the hand of Moses, may not other causes — 
than true love of holiness or godly hatred of sin work such 
an outward, as bears some considerable likeness to a saving 
change? In matters of religion, beware of confounding an 
almost with an altogether Christian. So far as it goes, any 
change for the better is good. We hail it with hope. It is 
good, so far as it goes, and good so long as it lasts; but Oh, 
let us not fall into the fatal mistake of confounding’ an out- 
ward reformation with that divine, inward, eternal trans- 


560 THOMAS GUTHRIE. 


formation which is wrought by the Spirit, and promised in 
the words, ‘‘ A new heart also will I give you.” 

Leaving the nature of this change to be afterwards con- 
sidered, let me attempt meanwhile to show that this is a 
great change. In illustration of the truth, look, I pray you, 
to the symbols under which it is presented in the Word of 
God. 

Lt ts a birth. 

When an infant leaves the womb—that darksome dwelling, 
where it has passed the first stage of its existence,—although 
the same creature, it may be said to be a new creature, and 
to enter on a new being. How great the change from that 
living sepulchre, where it lay entombed, nor saw, nor heard, 
nor breathed, nor loved, nor feared, nor took any more 
interest than the dead in all that was happening around it! 
Alive, yet how like death its state has been! Having eyes, 
it saw not, and ears it heard not, and feet it walked not, 
and hands it handled not, and affections it felt not. Its 
state was a strange and mysterious mingling of the char-, 
acters of life and death. When the windows of its senses 
are thrown open, and streams of knowledge come rushing 
in on its young and wondering soul, and its eyes follow the 
light, and with its restless hands it is acquainting itself with 
matter, and sounds are entering its ears, amid whose mingled 


din it soon learns to distinguish the sweet tones of one tender 


voice—its mother’s, and it loves and is loved, and lies nest- 
ling in dreamy slumbers on her bosom, or sweetly smiles in 
her smiling face—how great the change! Now, just because 
the change wrought on the soul in conversion is also great, 
and introduces its subject into a new and delightful exist- 
ence, it borrows a name from that change. That is the 
first, this is the second birth; ay, and infinitely the better 
of the two. Better! because in that a son of man is born 
but for the grave, whereas in this a son of God is born for 
glory.. Better! because the march of these little feet is 


a 


MAN CONVERTED. 561 


along a rough path between a cradle and a coffin; whereas, 
the way of grace, however full of trials, toil, and battle, is 
from the pangs of birth onward and upward to a crown in 
heaven. Happy for you if you are heaven-born and heaven- 
bound. It may be that a stormy life lies before you; but 
let storms rage and tempests. roar—however rude the gale 
or high the rolling billows—a heaven-born passenger in a 
heaven-bound bark, you cannot miss the haven. ‘There 
remaineth a rest to the people of God.” 

This change is a resurrection. A resurrection is a great 
change. Go to the churchyard. Go where death shall one 
day carry you, whether you will or not. ‘‘ Come,” said the 
angels, “‘see the place where the Lord lay.’’ Come, let us 
see the place where we ourselves shall lie, and look at man 
as we ourselves shall be. Take him in any of his stages of 
decay. Look at this compressed line of mould, that by its 
color marks itself out as different from the neighboring clay ; 
it is black earth, and retains no apparent vestige of organi- 
zation. What resemblance does it bear to a man? None. 
Yet gather it together and give it to the chemist; he 
analyzes it, and pronounces this unctuous dust to have been 
once a human creature. It may have been a beauty, who 
with alarm saw the roses fading on her cheek, and age 
tracing wrinkles on her ivory brow, and mixing in gray 
_ hairs with her raven locks. It may have been a beggar 
who, tired of his cold and hungry pilgrimage, laid his head 
gladly in the lap of mother earth, and ended his weary 
wanderings here. It may have been a king, who was 
dragged from amid his guards to the tomb, and sullenly 
yielded to the sway of a monarch mightier than himself. Or, 
look here at these yellow relics of mortality which the 
grave-digger—familiar with his trade—treats with such 
irreverent contempt. Look at these preachers of humility 
—at this mouldering skull, the deserted palace of a soul, 
within which high intellect once sat enthroned—at those 

2N 


562 THOMAS GUTHRIE. 


fleshless cheeks, once blooming with smiles and roses—at 
that skeleton hand, which may once have grasped the helm 
of public affairs, or swayed the passions of capricious multi- 
tudes, or held up the cross from sacred pulpits to the eyes 
of dying men—at those mouldering limbs, which piety may 
have bent to God—and at these hollow sockets—now the 
nest of slimy worms—where glances of love have melted, 
and looks of fire have flashed. 

Turning away your head with horror and humiliation, to 
think that you shall lie where they are—and be as they are 
—you say, Alas! what a change is there! Ah! but Faith - 
steps forward, plants a triumphant foot on the black grave’s 
edge, and silencing my fears, dispelling my gloom, and 
reconciling me to that lowly bed, she lifts her cheerful voice, 
and exclaims,, True! but what a change shall be there! 
Looking through her eyes, I see the spell broken. I see 
that dust once more animate. And when the blast of the 
trumpet—penetrating the caves of the rocks, and felt down 
in the depths of ocean—pierces the ear of death in this 
dark, and cold, and lonely bed, where I have lowered a 
coffin, and left the dear form and sweet face of some loved 
one, mortality shall rise in form immortal, more beautiful 
than love ever fancied or poet sang. How great the change, ' 
when these mouldering bones, which children look at with 
fear, and grown men with solemn sadness, shall rise instinct 
with life! Think of this handful of brown dust springing 
up into a form like that on which Adam gazed with mute 
astonishment, when for the first time he caught the image 
of himself mirrored in a glassy pool of Paradise; or better 
still, in a form such as, when awakening from his slumber, 
he saw with wondering, admiring eyes, in the lovely woman 
that lay by his side on their bed of love and flowers. And 
now, because the change which conversion works on the soul 
is also inexpressibly great, it borrows a name from that 
mighty change; that, a resurrection of the body from the 


MAN CONVERTED. 563 


grave, this, a resurrection of the soul from sin. In this 
‘“‘ we pass from death to life’’—in this we are “created anew 
in Jesus Christ.’’ ‘“‘ We rise with Him,” says the Apostle, 
‘to newness of life.”’ 

The greatness of the change is set forth in the symbolical 
representation of it in the next chapter. Seized by the 
hand of the Spirit, Ezekiel is born aloft, carried away 
through the air, and set down in a lonely valley among the 
hills of a distant land. This valley seems to have been, at 
some former period, the scene of a great battle. There 
hosts had sustained the charge of hosts, and crowns were 
perhaps staked and won. ‘The peace of these solitudes had 
been rudely broken by the shrieks of the wounded, the wild 
shouts of the victors, the clash of arms, and the savage 
roar of battle. It was silent now. The tide that swept 
over it had left it strewed with wrecks; the dead had 
mouldered unburied where they fell; the skull rattled in the 
cloven helmet; the sword of the warrior lay rusting beside 
his skeleton, and the handle was still in the relaxed grasp 
of the bony fingers. On these unburied corpses the “ birds 
of the air had summered,” and ‘‘ the wild beasts of the field 
had wintered.’”’ ‘The rain had washed, and the sun had 
bleached them ;—they were white and dry. In these grim 
and ghastly skeletons a doleful picture of death lay stretched 
‘out before the prophet; and while he surveyed the scene, 
there was neither sign nor sound of life, but, it may be, the 
croak of the raven, or the howl of the famished wolf, or the 
echo of his own solitary footfall. Such was the scene 
Hzekiel was contemplating when a voice made him start. It 
came from the skies, charged with this strange question, 
‘Son of man, can these bones live ?”’ 

We stay not to relate all that happened and was done. 
It serves our purpose to say, that after the prophet had 
preached to the bones, he prayed to Him who—to dead 
bones, dead bodies, dead hearts, dead souls, dead families, 


5 64. THOMAS GUTHRIE. 


and dead churches—is ‘‘the Resurrection and the Life.” 
Ezekiel’s was the prayer of faith—and it had its answer. 
How encouraging to us, when on our knees, that answer! 
We feel as if Aaron and Hur sat at our side, and held up 
our weary arms. LHzekiel, after preaching, prayed; and 
there came from heaven a living and life-giving breath. It 
blows down the valley; and as it kisses the icy lips of the 
dead, and stirs their hair, and fans their faces, man after 
man springs to his feet, till the field which Ezekiel found 
covered with ghastly skeletons is crowded with a mighty 
army—all armed for battle and war—the marshalled host of 
God. 

That was a great change, and not less great the work of 
grace in conversion. While the prophet is gazing with 
astonished eye on this martial array, where, amid trumpet 
echoes, spears are gleaming and plumes are dancing, as, 
bold in aspect and stout for war, the serried ranks march 
on, mark what the Lord said:—‘‘Son of man, these bones 
are the whole house of Israel; behold they say, Our bones 
are dried, and our hope is lost.’’ Now, is not this the very 
judgment—the very sentence—which the sinner often pro- 
nounces on his own case when his eyes are first opened, and 
he sees himself lost and undone? What is the house of 
Israel here but a type of God’s chosen people? In Israel 
we see our state by nature; a state of death; a state in 
which we are “dead in trespasses and sins.” On this 
account Satan would have us yield to despair. He says 
that for such sinners there is no help—no hope. It is he 
who speaks in the complaint, “Our bones are dried, and 
our hope is lost.’ Yes, it is he, the father of lies, the 
enemy of souls. Yield not even to a doubt, for here “ he 
that doubteth is damned ;”’ but mark God’s gracious answer 
to that unbelieving, dark, desponding complaint—“ Thus 
saith the Lord God; beheld, O my people, I will open your 


MAN CONVERTED. 565 


graves, and I will put my spirit within you, and ye shall 
live.” 

Hereafter, we, will enter particularly into the nature of 
this great change; meanwhile, let me ask, Have you any 
experience of it? I neither ask when, nor where, nor how 
you felt its first impressions. On these subjects the experi- 
ence of saints is very different. Some can tell the time 
of it—giving day and date, the hour, the providence, the’ 
place, the text, the preacher, and all the’ circumstances 
associated with their conversion. ‘They can show the arrow 
which, shot from some bow drawn at a venture, pierced the 
joints of their armor, and quivered in their heart. They 
can show the pebble from the brook, that, slung, it may be, 
by a youthful hand, but directed of God, was buried in the 
forehead of their giant sin. They can show the word that 
penetrated their soul, and—in some truths of Scripture— 
the salve that healed the sore, the balm that stanched the 
blood, and the bandage that Christ’s own kind hand wrapped 
on the bleeding wound. Able to trace the steps and whole 
progress of their conversion—its most minute and interest- 
ing details—they can say with David, ‘‘ Come and hear, all 
ye that fear God, and I will declare what he hath done for 
my soul.”’ 

It is not so, however, with all, or perhaps with most. 
Some, so to speak, are still-born; they were unconscious of 
their change ; they did not know when or how it happened ; 
for a while at least, they gave hardly a sign of life. With’ 
many the dawn of grace is, in more respects than one, like 
the dawn of day. We turn our face to the east, and our 
back to the setting stars, to note the very moment of the 
birth of morning; yet how hard it is to tell when and where 
the first faint, cold, steel-gray gleam appears! It is so with 
many in regard to their spiritual dawn,—with the breaking 
of an eternal day,—with their first emotions of desire and 
of alarm, as with that faint and feeble streak, which bright- 


566 THOMAS GUTHRIE. 


ened, and widened, and spread, till it blazed into a brilliant 
sky. 

The great matter, about which to be anxious, is not the 
time, nor place, nor mode of the change, but the fact itself. 
Has this change taken place in you? Are you other than 
once you were! Rather than be what once you were, would 
you prefer not being at all? Would you prefer annihila- 
tion to your old corruption? Some, alas! change to the 
worse, giving themselves up to sins, which once they would 
have blushed to mention. Dead to all sense of shame, 
breaking loose from the innocence of their childhood, casting 
off the comely habits and pious practices of a paternal home, 
they plunge into excess of riot; and, borne on by the impe- - 
tus they have acquired in the descent, like one running 
down hill who cannot stop although he would, when they 
reach the mouth of the pit they are borne over into per- 
dition. They change, but, like “Seducers,” they “wax 
worse and worse.”’ The night grows darker and darker; 
the edge of conscience duller and duller; the process of 
petrifaction goes on in their heart till it acquires the hard- 
ness of stone; and wallowing in the mire of the lowest 
~ sensuality, they can make a boast of sins—sins, in regard 
to which, on the day when they left their father’s roof, with 
his blessing on their head, and a mother’s warm tears on 
their cheek, they would have said with feelings of indignant 
abhorrence—“ Is thy servant a dog that he should do such 
a thing.” What a melancholy change! 

In blessed and beautiful contrast to a metamorphosis so 
sad, has the change in you taken an opposite direction? 
Can you say, I am not what once I was,—but better, god- 
lier, holier! Happy are you! Happy, although afraid of 
presumption, and in the blushing modesty of a spiritual 
childhood, you can venture no further than one who was 
urged to say whether she had been converted? How modest, 
yet how satisfactory her reply! That, she answered, I 


MAN CONVERTED. 567 


cannot—that I dare not say; but there is a change some- 
where; either I am changed or the world is changed. If 
you can say so, it is well. Such an answer leaves no room 
for painful doubts. Our little child—watching with curious 
eye the apparent motion of objects—calls out in ecstasy, 
and bids us see how hedge and house are flying past our 
carriage. It is not these that move, nor is it the fixed and 
firm shore, with its trees and fields, and boats at anchor, 
and harbors and headlands, that is gliding by the cabin 
windows. ‘That is an illusion of the eye. The motion is not 
in them but us. And if the world is growing less in your 
eye, it shows that you are retreating from it, rising above it, 
and ascending in the arms of grace to higher regions; and 
if the fashion of this world, to our eye, seems passing away, 
it is because we ourselves are passing—passing and pressing 
on in the way to heaven. Sin never changes. And if what 
was once lovely looks loathsome now—if what was once 
desired is detested now, if what was once sought we now 
shun and shrink from, it is not because sin is changed, but 
—hlessed be God, and praise be to his grace—we are 
changed. Our eyes are opened; the scales have dropped 
from them; and the solution of the problem may be found 
in the blind man’s answer—‘‘ Whereas I was blind, now I 


9 


see. 


Valls 
JESUS IN GETHSEMANE. 


THOLUCK. 


[Frrepricu Aveust Gorrrev THotvck, D. D., a Protestant theologian 
of Germany eminent for his evangelical works and eloquence, was 
born at Breslau, March 30th 1799. At the University of Berlin, where 
he completed his studies, he became engrossed in oriental literature, 
and confesses that he then esteemed Mohammedanism as nearly equal 
to Christianity. Neander did much to lead him to repentance and 
godliness of soul. In 1826 Dr. Tholuck was appointed professor of 
theology at Halle. This pious scholar had to endure many annoyances 
from rationalists in that theological faculty; but his calm faith has 
been rewarded by seeing the University become a consistent defender 
of Christian truth. Among his chief works are Commentaries on 
Romans, John and Hebrews, besides a “ History of Rationalism,” 
several parts of which have appeared. This Sermon is extracted from 
‘‘ Light from the Cross,’’ a series on the passion and crucifixion of our 


Lord. | 


““ Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and 
saith unto the disciples, Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder. 
And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to 
be sorrowful and very heavy. Then saith he unto them, my soul is 
exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me 
And he’ went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, 
O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless 
not as I will, but as thou wilt. And he cometh unto the disciples, and 
Jindeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What! could ye not watch 
with me one hour 2? Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: 
the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. He went away 
again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cwp 
may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done. And 
he came and found them asleep again; for their eyes were heavy. And 
he left them, and went away again, and prayed the third time, saying 
the same words. Then cometh he to his disciples, aud saith unto them, 
Sleep on now, and take your rest: behold, the hour is at hand, and the 
Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be 
going: behold, he is at hand that doth betray me.”’—Matt. xxvi. 36-46. 

(568) 


JESUS IN GETHSEMANE. 569 


BELOVED in the Lord! Christmas and New-year’s day are 
gone, and already I call upon you to ‘‘ go up with me unto 
Jerusalem.” We shall begin to-day our Good-Friday and 
Easter meditations. There are not many texts suitable for 
Christmas in the New Testament—but for Easter and for Good 
Friday there are many—so many, that it is impossible to 
exhaust them. We have, on a previous occasion, considered 
together the revelation of the human heart, as it is exhib- 
ited beneath the cross of Christ. And in this respect we 
have contemplated the heart of a Caiaphas, a Peter, a 
Thomas, and a Mary. We saw that the heart of man is 
only rightly revealed, when it is brought beneath the cross 
of Christ. It is true, the Christian congregation stands in 
need of moral sermons, and the preacher must descend, with 
the word of Christ in his hand, into the heart of man; but 
it is ever to him most rejoicing and refreshing, when he can 
look into the heart of Christ himself. The difference is, as 
when one, standing high in the mountain air, sees the spring 
rise out of the rocky mountain-side, and when, standing in 
the valley below, he beholds the copious stream, which, as it 
flows, spreads blessing and fertility all around. And may 
God grant that you may know in your deep experience, that 
a power goes forth from the word which testifies of Jesus, 
which makes men whole. 

We shall view the heart of Jesus in Gethsemane, on the 
way to Golgotha, on the cross. Arise, and let us go this 
day in spirit to Gethsemane, and there behold the heart of 
our Saviour, in order that we may thereby learn how we 
may drink the cup of sorrow, when it shall be handed to us. 
Listen to the words of the Holy Scripture, as we find it in 
Matthew xxvi. 86-46: .... “Then cometh Jesus with 
them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto the 
disciples, Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder. And he 
took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and be- 
gan to be sorrowful and very heavy. Then saith’ he unto 


570 FRIEDRICH A. G. THOLUCK. 


them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: 
tarry ye here, and watch with me.. And he went a little 
farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my 
Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: never- 
theless not as I will, but as thou wilt. And he cometh unto 
the disciples and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, 
What! could ye not watch with me one hour? Watch and 
pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed 
is willing, but the flesh is weak. He went away again the 
second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup 
may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be 
done. And he came and found them asleep again: for their _ 
eyes were heavy. And he left them, and went away again, 
and prayed the third time, saying the same words. Then 
cometh he to his disciples, and saith unto them, Sleep on, 
now, and take your rest: behold, the hour is at hand, and 
the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, 

let us be going: behold, he is at hand that doth betray me.” 
| It may not have been half an hour before, that the Lord 
_ had uttered so solemnly the intercessory prayer. That was 
‘ not like the prayer of a dying man, but rather as of one 
already glorified. And behold! around that sacred head, 
where but a little time before the light of glory shone, ah! 
what heavy clouds are gathering now! And yet this con- 
trast, this change of light and darkness, is not unintelligible. . 
The man who has not, in an unnatural way, repressed his 
feelings, will always find in those hours when he has some 
heavy trial to bear, that with whatever strength and decision 
he may have surrendered his own will to the will of God, and 
however clearly and distinctly his eye may perceive the real 
tints of approaching morn looking out from behind the 
night-clouds of sorrow, nevertheless, when he really enters 
into the cloud, a cold chill passes over his soul, and the 
convulsions of sorrow overpower him. 

These will be moments, isolated indeed, but just on that 


JESUS IN GETHSEMANE. 571 


very account all the more severe: in every case suffering 
demands its due. When once this tribute has been rendered, 
it is enough. Thus how often, even after the sky has 
cleared up, do we see a single storm-cloud discharge its 
burden of thunder, lightning, and rain, and it is not till the 
last drop has fallen, and the last thunder has pealed, that 
serenity and calm are restored. This natural feeling of pain 
resembles the heat of summer and the cold of winter. There 
are cold summers and there are warm winters; but, at least 
for some days in the season, winter and summer must assert 
their right, and when they have once done so, it is enough. 

The Saviour, too, has in this hour to pay his tribute to 
suffering. He will do it now when unseen by any but his 
disciples, that he may stand as a hero, when he must front 
his enemies. So may it be with us also, brethren, when the 
clouds of sorrow gather round us with all their terrors. 
Sorrow must have its due, but let it be paid in solitude, 
where no human eye, or at least none but a friendly one, is 
by to see. And then let the tears be quietly dried, when 
we go out again before men, that we cause not any offence 
to the Saviour’s name. 


‘“‘ Like a flower whose root’s unseen 
While the bloom appears, 

A smile beams on the Christian’s life 
Which springs from hidden tears.”’ 


If we look into the Saviour’s heart we shall see how a 
yes and a no are in conflict there: the no is human, the yes 
divine, and divine is the final decision. There is a human 
no in his heart as he realizes the hour when his own ex- 
tremest suffering and his people’s extremest guilt shall be 
brought awfully near to each other, nay, shall consume one 
another. ‘“O Christ! the leaders of thy people, of the 
people of thy choice, will let their enmity against thee rise 
_ to the highest pitch of fury; ay, they will even lay hands 


572 FRIEDRICH A. G. THOLUCK. 


on thee, on thee, the centre and seal of all their promises.”’ 
His heart cries No! “One of thy chosen will betray thee, 
another of them will deny, all of them will forsake thee.” 
His heart cries No! “The guilt of the people and of man- 
kind, which they have committed against thee, will weigh 
down thy heart and bow thy head, as if it were thy 
righteous doom.” No! cries his heart with abhorrence. 
And indeed how could he then have answered other- 
wise? Had any other than this been his answer, could he 
then have loved mankind? Could he even have felt as a 
man feels, if, in view of this final catastrophe, he had not 
with all his might answered No! But perhaps you are 
thinking of him of world-renown, that greatest among the 
heathen, of Socrates—before whose death-struggle there lay 
no Gethsemane, Do you ask why that man whom no faint- 
ing of spirit, no bloody sweat awaits, why, with such a calm 
smile of irony, he takes the cup of poison which his accu- 
sers, in the bitterness of their hate, present to him? He 
was great indeed, that greatest among the heathen that 
know not God; but in that cold smile on the very verge of 
that last, that most momentous step which man can take, 
I find not his greatness. It does indeed appear great that 
he did not tremble at the step he was taking into a land 
which to him was really a land unknown, which was dis- 
closed to him only by the faint’ and feeble light of a pre- 
sentiment of the heart. But had he not been greater still, 
if, even in him, who with all his wisdom was after all but a 
sinful child of man, the thought that he must soon stand 
before his Judge, had driven the blood quicker and hotter 
through his veins? Had he not been greater if a feeling 
of pitying sympathy for the guilt which his accusers were 
incurring, and for the blindness of his fellow-countrymen, 
had crimsoned his cheek and darkened his brow with sor- 
row! But the man who, in the days of his life, instead of 
pitying the sinners, has ironically laughed at the fools, such 


JESUS IN GETHSEMANE, 573 


a one will find something to smile at even in the deepest 
blindness of his people. O! the guilt of such is indeed not 
once to be measured with the guilt of the chosen people, 
that people who outraged him on whom all- their promises 
hung, the holy Lamb of God; and yet, had there been in 
the heart of the Grecian sage but a spark of the holy sym- 
pathy of Jesus with sinful humanity, surely then a shade of 
sorrow must have passed over the smiling countenance! No! 
the Saviour could not have been so holy, so loving, and so 
great, and the guilt of his murderers could not have been 
so enormous as it was, had he thought on that hour without 
the sweat of agony, or had he gone to meet it with only that 
horror of death which all other children of men experience. 
But was it really sorrow on account of his own suffering 
only, that so afflicted and prostrated his soul? Were this 
the case, for whom, I ask you, had the tears which he shed 
on his last entrance into the city, when he cried, ‘‘O! that 
thou hadst known the things which belong to thy peace!” 
for whom would those tears have flowed? Can you doubt 
that he who then wept at the thought of the guilt his own 
people were so soon to incur, did now in Gethsemane feel » 
the weight of this sorrow also? And when on the way to 
the cross the women of Jerusalem, in their sympathy, 
mourned for him, was it hzs own sorrow that engrossed his 
thoughts and filled his soul when he cried, ‘“ Weep not for 
me, weep rather for yourselves’? No, believe me. On 
every occasion when he is seen to shudder at the thought 
of his sufferings, it is because he is looking down into the 
abyss of his people’s guilt, which these sufferings disclose. 
Thus it was too on that occasion, when, long before the 
wings of death began to flutter around him, he cried, ‘‘ I am 
come to kindle a fire on the earth, but I have yet a baptism 
to be baptized with, and how do I long for it to be accom- 
plished!” If then it cannot be denied that the horror with 
which the Redeemer contemplates death is at the same time 


574 FRIEDRICH A. G. THOLUCK. 


a horror at the thought of the guilt of humanity, then was 
his answer all the more on that account a real human no, 
when he prayed, “If it be possible, let this cup pass !” 

But along with this human No, there was also, from the 
very first, as we must believe, a Divine deep-seated Yes, in 
his heart. What I mean is, that from the beginning he 
knew to what end he was in the world, he acknowledged a 
Divine necessity which determined every step he took. 
‘‘Must not Christ have suffered those things, that he might 
enter into his glory?’ such is the question which he put to 
his disciples after the resurrection, as he opened up to them | 
the Scriptures. From this we see that he had read with his: 
enlightened eye his own history in the prophecies of the Old 
Testament from the first. You know the prophecies of 
Isaiah, that gospel-book of the Old Testament, and there 
you have learned to recognisé the noble form of the true 
suffering servant of God. ‘He shall grow up before him 
as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he 
hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, 
there is no beauty that we should desire him. Surely he 
hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; yet we did 
esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.” How 
often in its musings must the spirit of our Lord have been 
absorbed in these verses! He did not require to ask, like 
that chamberlain of whom we read, “I pray thee, of whom 
speaketh the prophet this?’ In this crape-covered mirror 
the Saviour beheld the reflection of himself, and saw, long 
before they arrived, the days of his sorrow. They had 
ever, from the very first, been before his eyes. Does he 
not, already, at the first passover in Jerusalem, speak to 
Nicodemus of the Divine necessity, according to which he 
is to be raised upon the cross: ‘‘As Moses lifted up the 
serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be 
lifted up.”’ And in how many sayings does this must recur? 
“Except a grain of corn fall into the earth and die, it 


JESUS IN GETHSEMANE. 575 


abideth alone.” “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, 
will draw all men unto me.” “ The Son of Man came to give 
his life 4 ransom for many.’’ Yea, he even prays in the pass- 
age before us, “If it be possible, let this cup pass;” a say- 
ing hard to understand, when we remember that it was but 
a few hours before that he had actually instituted the me- 
morial of his death, when he appointed the sacrament of 
the Supper, that he had actually preached of the blood of 
the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remis- 
sion of sins. Then the Divine necessity was full before his 
soul, and now he speaks of a possibility: ‘“‘My Father! if 
it be posszble, let this cup pass from me!”’ 

And yet he to whom it has been assigned to experience to 
the uttermost the fire of trial, to whom his God has seen 
meet, at one period or other in the course of his life, to allot 
such tests as Abraham had, and such hours of affliction as 
Job knew, such a man will be able to understand this, which 
to others appears so mysterious. He will remember how, at 
such seasons, all that a man has known and experienced re- 
tires into the background, and not a single idea or emotion 
remains before the soul save that one, all-absorbing thought 
of pain, which in its insuperable greatness fills the eye of 
the soul, and shuts out all other thoughts from its memory 
and regard. One may know ever so certainly and distinctly 
that the cup, the bitter cup, must be drunk, and yet the soul 
will cry, “ Lord, is it possible; Lord, is it possible?’ And 
even if the decree of God was graven in stone before the 
soul: “Soul, thou must!” still the soul would cry, ‘‘ Lord, 
is it possible!’’ It is indeed only those among you, who 
are no longer apprentices in the school of affliction, that 
know this kind of wrestling with God; but you also will be 
able to bear testimony to its truth. With us, indeed, it is 
only for a few hours, or perhaps half-hours, that the inner 
eye of the soul is so covered with tears, that it can indeed 


576 FRIEDRICH A. G. THOLUCK. 


see nothing else but those tears. With our Lord, however, 
this state did not last for hours, with him it is scarcely a 
minute in duration, for see how he gives expression in almost 
the same breath to both—both to the wish of his heart, 
bound with anguish, and to his consciousness of the divine, 
holy necessity of the case: “If it be possible, let this cup 
pass ;’’ but in the same sentence he adds, ‘‘ Nevertheless, 
not as I will, but as thou wilt.’”’ These two points of view 
come separately before his mind, in his contemplation, only ; 
in reality, they are ever united; and they are viewed apart 
only to be instantly united once more. And also in our 
Saviour’s view you see how clearly the two are brought to- 
gether, when, the second time, returning from his disciples, 
he says, ‘‘O my Father, if this cup may not pass away 
from me, except I drink it, thy will be done.”’ The cup is 
bitter, and, in view of its bitterness, purely human feeling 
can never do otherwise than refuse or be unwilling to drink 
it. But he lets a little drop fall into the cup, which is suffi- 
cient to make its contents sweet, and that drop is the short 
phrase, “‘ God wills it.” When he comes back from his dis- 
ciples the first time, that little drop is not as yet thoroughly 
mixed with the other contents of the cup; and the very 
point ,of conflict is to make the divine sweetness transfuse 
the human bitterness. And so when Christ says, “ Rise, let 
us be going,” the bitterness has been swallowed up by the 
sweetness, and made wholly to disappear; and, as the sun, 
which in the morning a stormy cloud had covered, rises in 
majesty in the heavens, serene and unclouded, the Saviour 
advances from beneath the darkness of that cloud of woe, 
and accosts his enemies with the question, “‘ Whom seek 
ye?” t 

The decision cost our Lord a struggle. O brethren, it 
does cost man something to find that the cup which God 
holds out to him, and which in itself is so bitter, is notwith 


JESUS IN GETHSEMANE. 577 


standing sweet, just because 7¢ ¢s the will of God. The de- 
cision cost our Lord a struggle. O how bitter must that 
cup have been to him at the thought of which he could be 
so faint and disheartened! Can you estimate what a weight 
must have lain upon his heart when from his brow the sweat 
of agony fell in great drops of blood? But what most 
strikes the reader of this touching narrative is, the longing 
of the Saviour for human sympathy. He is in need of 
loving men to watch with him. ‘ What, could ye not watch 
with me one hour ?”’ Here may we also, brethren, draw some- 
thing for our hours of suffering. Yes, it is human to be. 
unwilling to watch through the hot and parching hours of 
life without the solace of sympathy and love. Human too 
is it, not to withdraw one’s self when the children of afflic- 
tion invite us to weep through their nights of tears along 
with them. Our friends, too, will grow weary and sleepy 
when called on to watch with us through long nights of sor- 
row—for O! it is easier to rejoice with those that rejoice 
than it is to weep with those that weep. The friends of the 
Lord were overcome with sleep, although they were required 
to watch only one single hour with their Master! How 
bitter must the cup have been to him, for he is now so dis- 
heartened: he had fought this very fight already, long be- 
fore the bitter reality, in his foreknowledge of the future. 
The conflict in Gethsemane had been fought through even 
in the wilderness of Jordan, in the days of his temptation. 
Was there not, then, already at the outset, the whole of the 
way of the cross stretching before the eye of his soul, that 
way which, according to God’s appointment, he had to go; 
and already at the outset did he make his decision ; although 
he might have chosen joy, he chose the cross. And when, 
at the feast at Jerusalem the first rays of the glory which 
was to follow from his sufferings shone around him, on the 
occasion when the Greeks desired to see him, as the thought 
19 20 


578 FRIEDRICH A. G. THOLUGKE. 


of the inexpressible joy which his sufferings were to bring 
to the whole human race came before him, then, along with 
the vision of his glory, the thought of what he must first 
endure seized his soul. ‘‘ Except a corn of wheat fall into 
the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bring- 
eth forth much fruit. Now is my soul troubled; and what 
shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour?’ But for 
this cause came I unto this hour.”’ You see, it is the same 
conflict : ‘‘ Now is my soul troubled, shall I say, ‘Save me 
from this hour ?’—but for this cause came I unto this hour!”’ 
It is the same human No, the same divine Yes, and the same 
divine-human decision. Thus more than once did the Sa- 
viour fight this fight, more than once did he wring from 
himself this decision. It is written of him, ‘* My meat is to 
do the will of my Father.”” Again, it is written of him that 
“he learned obedience by the things which he suffered.” 
The will of God was indeed meat to him; but to find that 
meat so distasteful to his humanity to be pleasant, was 
no easy matter. Only by exercise, only by suffering, only 
in repeated fights, in repeated decisions, was it possible that 
the Son of God could learn to do this. And none of you, 
my brethren, who have not learned obedience to the will of 
God, and the joy of that obedience in the school of afflic- 
tion, have ever learned it. The fact that you wonder at 
these fierce conflicts, at these repeated decisions of the Lord, 
may testify to you, either that you have not yet an idea, 
even the faintest, of the load that lay upon the holy soul 
of Jesus, because you are not yourselves holy enough; or, 
that you have not yet felt how great the lesson is which has 
been given you to learn; to be able in everything, even in 
what to the natural man is distasteful and unpleasant, to 
say, not in the spirit of a servant, but of a child, “ Thy 
will be done!’’ “‘ How sweet are thy words unto my taste.” 

Ah! most men do not understand even what sort of a 


JESUS IN GETHSEMANE. 579 


decision is required of them in their hours of suffering. 
There are some who, without ever imagining that every 
affliction is sent by God charged with the teaching of a mo- 
ral lesson, regard their endurance of those afflictions in the 
light of a meritorious work. But do not err: it was not by 
the crown of thorns alone that Jesus became the Christ; it 
is not, it never can be so. Others there are who look upon 
themselves as heroes, when they can forget their sufferings. 
That is, to say the least, unnatural. Is it not unnatural in 
an old man to act as if he were young, or when a lame man 
would leap as if he were whole? Thus, too, it is unnatural 
to wish to ignore and deny a burden under which we lie, by 
the decree of God. Nay, more, it is ungodly; for why has 
thy God been pleased to smite thee with the rod, if thou 
art not to feel its smart; why has he poured out for thee 
the bitter draught, if thou art not to taste its bitterness? 
But thou wouldst escape from the school where God would 
teach thee, and because thou art ashamed of the bitter 
draught, thou wouldst drink it with blinded eyes. Thou fool! 
is not the cup there, and must it not be drunk whether thou 
drink it with thine eyes open or closed? But we are not to | 
take blindly, but as seeing men, all that God holds out to 

us. And to take it with open eyes means, to acknowledge 
the end for which it is given. Now, it is given us in order 
that we may learn the art of tasting what is sweet in the 
will of God, even when that will involves what is in itself 
bitter. This is what we are intended to learn. To pour 
the little drop “‘ God wills it’? into the bitter cup, and to 
mingle that little drop with the bitter contents, until the 
taste of the whole is sweetened. At present the most of 
you suffer, only because you must, and therefore as servants ; 
but you should suffer as children, who suffer because it is 
the will of their Father that they should, and who, because 
it is his will, make it also theirs. When one learns to view 


580 FRIEDRICH A. G. THOLUCK. 


sorrow in this light, what a multitude of moral lessons open 
up to him! ‘Then one need not wait for extraordinary sea- 
sons of affliction. Hach little daily sorrow, every misunder- 
standing we experience on the part of our fellow-men, every 
little disappointed hope, every cross, every care, if only 
viewed in this light, becomes a great lesson to every Christ- 
jan soul: he must not bear it as a servant, he must bear it 

a son! QO ye who know not yet the school of affliction, 
and the lesson that is there taught, go, learn it at Geth- 
semane! Learn it in contemplating the conflict. which the 
holy heart of Jesus knew there, and let the thought of him 
be your consolation and your strength when the cup is passed 
to you! There you may once and again have to bend the 
knee, before your breast is unburdened, and your brow again 
unclouded. The struggle may be so severe that in it the 
physical man may be quite shaken and shattered, and you 
may have to fight every inch of the way. And if one de- 
cision be not sufficient, another and another must be forced 
from you. O! in all these experiences your Saviour has 
gone before you, for he, even he had to learn obedience by 
the things which he suffered. Remember that with every 
new apni: this obedience becomes more and more our own, 
becomes more and more the law of our new life. Hence it 
is that the conflict recurs so often. If even with the Sa- 
viour the struggle had to be fought, and the decision to be 
made repeatedly over again, think what a very difficult task 
it must be to sweeten the bitter cup with the consideration 
that it is God who sends it. And even when the fight is— 
over, and the victory won, above the shout of triumph may 
still be heard the groan of suffering nature. Do you not hear 
after the decision of Gethsemane, and before the final “ It 
is finished,’’ the words, ‘‘ My God, my God, why hast thou 
forsaken me?’ May the soul-conflict of our Saviour in 
Gethsemane teach us that it is one of the, highest works of 


JESUS IN GETHSEMANE. 581 


our Christian life at all times so to permeate and transfuse 
the human no with the divine yes, that the final decision 
shall be divine! 


“The Christian lives, but lives to fight, 
He struggles on his way. 
Christ’s people are his soldiers too, 
Christ leads them by his Spirit through, 
From strife to victory. 


"Tis not the skirmish of an hour; 
Sin yields not at a blow: 

For pride of heart is ill to slay, 

And what seemed overcome to-day 
Will be to-morrow’s foe.”’ 


O Lord! Thou who in all points didst become like unto 
us, yet without sin. O Lord! Thou who in the days of thy 
flesh didst offer strong crying and tears, in order that thy 
Heavenly Father’s will might be found sweet unto thee, 
grant unto us thy Spirit, that we may understand the lesson 
that is daily, in every sorrow, given us to learn. Grant us 
thy Spirit, that we may fight a good fight, and may never 
by succumbing enfeeble our spirit. O Lord! how beautiful 
is the crown which awaits us at the goal, do thou hold it 
ever before our soul! Amen. 


XXXVITII. 
WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST? 


THOMSON. 


[At Wheeling, Virginia, March 22d 1870, died Epwarp Tomson, 
D. D., LL.D., a Christian educator, editor, and bishop, of great talents 
and zeal—in the memorial words of Bishop Simpson: ‘the gifted, 
the eloquent, the polished writer, the pure Christian man.”’ He was 
born at Portsea, a suburb of Portsmouth, England, in October 1810, 
and in his ninth year settled with his father’s family in Wayne county, 
Ohio. He received a classical and medical education, and practised 
as a physician for several years. From skepticism he was converted 
in his twenty-second year, and at once became a Methodist exhorter. 
Principal of the Norwalk Seminary in 1838, and for six years editor 
of the “ Ladies’ Repository,” Cincinnati, he was appointed president of 
the Ohio Wesleyan University in 1845. Fifteen years later he was 
elected editor of the official church organ—the ‘‘ Christian Advocate and 
Journal ;”’ and in 1864 he was chosen Bishop of the Methodist Episco- 
pal Church. An official visit to the missions in India, China, Turkey, 
Germany, and Switzerland, gave birth to two thoughtful, volumes on 
“Our Oriental Missions.’ His “ Educational Essays” are the ripe 
experiences of a quarter-century’s labors as a teacher of youth. Equa 
ble in temperament, modest, capable of much literary toil, he was 
“one of the greatest masters of classic English” in his denomination, 
gifted with an ‘eloquence with too much of heaven in it to be set 
forth in any terms but its own.” The following Sermon is a verbatim 
but unrevised report. | 


“ What think ye of Christ ?’—Matt. xxii. 42. 


“‘Wuat think ye of Christ ?”’ is a question which we may 
all very profitably put to ourselves. In order to form cor- 
rect ideas of the Saviour, we must not limit ourselves to the 
Evangelists. Indeed, the Evangelists had but an imperfect 
conception of Christ—of his motives, of his purpose, and of 
his character. The writers of the Epistles had a far better 


idea, coming after the Hvangelists, of the true nature and 
(582) 


WHATATHINKS YESOPVOHRI S72: 583 


character of the Messiah. But to do justice to him, we must 
look at him in other aspects. We must took at him through 
the prophecies, and down upon him through the ages. We call 
your attention, first, to the Christ of prophecy; secondly, to 
the Christ of the Evangelists; and thirdly, to the Christ of 
history. | 

I. First, then, Christ in prophecy. He is to be the Saviour 
of the world. When our first parents fell, it seems that they 
must have been cut off, and with them the human race, had 
not God foreseen and forecast the necessity of a Saviour. 
When he pronounced upon them the mitigated sentence of 
the law and placed them in a new probation, he intimated 
to them a coming Deliverer. This promise was contained in 
the sentence pronounced upon the serpent: ‘The seed of 
the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head.’”’ Now, however 
obscure this promise may seem to us, it was doubtless clear 
to them, encouraging their hopes and leading them to offer 
sacrifices ; for sacrifices were certainly offered by Abel, and 
probably by Adam. When we consider the history of the 
sacrifice of Abel and the acceptance of it—I mean in contra- 
distinction to the rejection of that of Cain—it seems that 
they had some idea of the mode in which the deliverance 
was to be achieved. As the human race diverged from the 
primitive seed, they must have borne with them this tra- 
dition of a promised Deliverer; because, wherever we find ' 
the human family, in all ages and in all nations, we find 
them offering sacrifices. Now, as there is no natural con- 
nection between the forgiveness of sin and the offering of 
sacrifices, it seems hardly possible to account for this uni-, 
form law without referring it to the primitive tradition. 

I remark, in the next place, that the Christ of prophecy 
is to be of a virgin born. “A virgin shall conceive and bear 
a son’ —a very remarkable statement. When, before or since 
Messiah, has any man been born of a virgin? Again, he is 
to be the incarnate God. ‘A virgin shall conceive and bear 


584 EDWARD THOMSON. 


a son, and thou shalt call his name Immanuel, which means 
God with us.” Again: ‘ Unto us a child is born, and unto 
us a Son is given, and his name shall be Wonderful, Coun- 
sellor, the Everlasting Father, the Mighty God, as well as 
the Prince of Peace.”’ Again, the Christ of prophecy is to 
come from Abraham through the line of Jacob and through 
the family of David, to each of whom the promise is repeated 
and enlarged. You recollect the circumstances under which 
the promise was repeated to Abraham. He was dwelling in 
Beersheba: the Lord directed him to take his son, his only 
son, his well-beloved son Isaac, and convey him to the land 
of Moriah, and offer him up in sacrifice upon an eminence 
which should be designated. The patriarch hesitated not 
uor delayed. ‘The next morning he took the beasts of bur- 
den, two servants, and the necessaries for the journey, and 
directed his way, with his son Isaac, to the appointed place. 
Three days he journeyed with that little son. O what a 
journey that was! meditating, as he could not avoid it, 
upon the transaction about to take place. He arrives at the 
mount, and says to his servants: ‘‘Tarry ye here while I 
and my son go up the mount to worship.”’ And as they 
were travelling up the mount, probably Calvary, the son 
said to the father: ‘‘ Father, here is the wood, and there is 
the fire, but where is the lamb?’ O what a question for a 
father’s heart! Arriving at the spot, the altar was built, 
and the wood was laid upon it, and then the lamb, the 
precious lamb, was bound and laid upon the wood, and then 
the knife was drawn to pierce that precious victim. But it 
was enough. ‘The Lord directed Abraham to stay his hand, 
and, looking round, he saw a ram caught in the thicket, 
which he substituted for his son. 

This can hardly be understood but as symbolic of what 
afterward occurred on that mountain, in all probability the 
very same summit where God gave up his Son, his only Son, 
his well-beloved Son, as a sacrifice for the human race. Well, 


WHAT THINK YE OF.CHRIST? 585 


in immediate connection with this transaction, God says: 
‘In thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed” 
—a promise which we cannot understand, unless it refers to 
Christ, and which the apostle Paul, in his epistle to the 
Galatians, distinctly declares was uttered of the Messiah. 
Then to Jacob the promise is renewed. You recollect, as 
the patriarch is dying, he predicted the future of the con- 
dition of the tribes that shall come of his sons. When he 
comes to Judah, among other things, he says: ‘The 
sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from 
between his feet, until Shiloh come, and unto him shall the 
gathering of the nations be.” The Shiloh to whom the 
gathering of the nations shall be must mean Messiah. I 
may be asked, however, if Judah was not taken captive by 
Nebuchadnezzar, if it was not overthrown by Ptolemy, if it 
was not taken by Pompey, and if it was not reduced to a 
Roman province before the coming of the Messiah? I 
answer, notwithstanding all these calamities, the tribe of 
Judah preserved its tribeship and its innocence until the 
coming of Shiloh. Then to-day the promise is renewed in 
various forms. Take, for example, that strange declaration: 
“Thou wilt not suffer thine Holy One to see corruption ; 
thou wilt not leave my soul in hell’’—that is Hades—a clear 
prophecy of the resurrection of our Lord. 

Again, the Christ of prophecy is to be born in a particular 
place. Thus in Micah, 5th chapter: ‘ But thou, Bethlehem 
Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Ju- 
dah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to 
be the ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been of old, 
from everlasting.”” Of whom but the Messiah can this pre- 
existence from eternity be predicated? And then Messiah, 
whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting, 
is to be born at a particular place, clearly designated—Beth- 
lehem of Judah. : 

Again, this Christ of prophecy is to be born at a particu- 


586 EDWARD THOMSON. 


lar time; the time is designated in various ways. Take 
that simple prediction of Daniel, in the 9th chapter at the 
24th verse: ‘‘ Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people 
and upon thy holy city, to finish” (or restrain, as the mar- 
gin has it) ‘the transgression’ —that is, by the pouring out 
of the Holy Spirit—‘‘ and make an end of sins, and to make. 
reconciliation for iniquity’’—by his death upon the cross— 
“to bring in everlasting righteousness’ —that is, to bring in 
everlasting redemption, which has been the hope of the ages 
—‘ to seal up the vision and prophecy’’—that is, to close up 
the Scripture—“ and to anoint the most Holy’’—that is, to 
make Christ a priest. Seventy weeks, each day answering 
to a year, making four hundred and ninety years, and the 
time is the time when the decree of Artaxerxes was issued 
for the:rebuilding of the temple and of the city. This 
period of four hundred and ninety years is divided into 
three periods, one of seven weeks of forty-nine years, dur- 
ing which the temple is to be rebuilt, and the city walls 
restored, and the Jewish people rehabilitated and recon- 
structed; then the period of sixty-two weeks until the coming 
of the Messiah; then the period of one week of seven years, 
during which the ministry of the Baptist, the ministry of the 
Son of Man, and the sacrifice of the cross are to take place, 
-and afterward the destruction of Jerusalem. Now, it seems 
to me that nothing can be more distinct—not only the place, 
but the particular time at which the Messiah should come. 

I remark, in the next place, that he is to fulfil the three- 
fold functions of prophet, priest, and king. Moses, who gave 
the first revelation, clearly explains to us that after him 
should come a Prophet to complete the revelation. At one 
particular place, you recollect, he especially cautions the 
people against looking for any other revelation than that 
which he has given until the coming of that Prophet. He 
knew that they would go among the idolatrous nations, and 
that there they would find witches, wizards, necromancers, 


WHATOLTEOEN EVES OR OAR IS T? 587 


and, perhaps, table-tippers and spiritualists. Against them 
all he utters his caution—that they are not to look into the 
future by these means, but to wait for the coming of the 
Prophet whom the Lord should raise up unto them of 
their people and whom they should hear. Then he is to be 
a Priest—and a Priest of a peculiar kind; a Priest whose 
altar is to be his own cross, whose victim is to be his own 
body. And the Jews must have had some idea of such a 
sacrifice as Christ offered. I do not see how they could have 
avoided it, standing in the midst of their tabernacle and 
temple. Hverything addressed to the senses, and everything 
that was addressed to the imagination, seemed to point to just 
such a sacrifice as that of the cross. Why did they take 
. living animals who had not committed sin, and offer them 
upon their bloody altars? And mark, it is not the lion or the 
tiger or the wolf that they slew upon those altars, but it was 
the dove, who was upon the housetop, and the emblem of 
innocence; it was the ox that bowed to the yoke‘and bore 
burdens, and served man; it was the lamb, the emblem of 
purity, that bleated in the flock, that played with the child- 
ren, that lay in the bosom, that was slain and placed upon 
the altar. Surely pointing them to some sinless, innocent 
victim, that should be offered at some time a sacrifice for sin, 
and of which all these sacrifices were the types, keeping the 
mind ever acquainted with that coming sacrifice. The pro- 
phet Isaiah gives a description of this sacrifice in the 53d 
chapter—a remarkable chapter. [The Bishop here recited 
from memory the whole of the chapter.] It gives a particu- 
lar and very specific description of the manner in which our 
Saviour came, the manner in which he was received, the 
offering which he made for mankind, and the final triumph 
of his reign. 

Once more, he is to be a King as well as Priest. In visions 
of the night, Daniel saw ‘‘ One like unto the Son of Man” 
coming in the clouds of heaven, and he came to the Ancient: 


588 EDWARD THOMSON. 


of days, and they brought him near before him, and there 
was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom. For 
what purpose? That all peoples, nations, and languages 
should .serve him, and his dominion is an everlasting domin- 
ion, and his kingdom that which shall not end. 

Now, concerning these prophecies, a few general remarks 
before I pass. First, that they occur in a series of predic- 
tions extending from the first hour of time to the last, con- 
taining numerous events which can be shown to have been 
fulfilled, and none can be shown to have been falsified. 
Secondly, that they contain numerous particulars concern- 
ing the Son of Man, all of which meet in Jesus of Nazareth, 
and can meet in no other man. Can it be pretended that in 
any other man they met prior to the destruction of Jeru- . 
salem? it is not possible that they should meet in any 
other man since. Thirdly, that one of these revelations is 
sufficient for conviction—the very chapter which I have 
quoted—the 53d of Isaiah. It is said that a celebrated 
infidel of the last age was convinced of the incorrectness 
of his position, and was led to accept the Christian faith, 
simply from a meditation upon that prophecy. It comes, 
mark, from the hands of our enemies, our bitterest enemies, 
the Jews; they furnish us with the prophecy of Isaiah, and 
have had it in their archives more than six hundred years 
before the coming of the Messiah. And then, as to the ful- 
fillment, how particular! so that, if you only change the 
tenses, the prophecy answers for history itself. 

But I may be asked, how was it that this prophecy, so 
clear, did not convert the Jews themselves? Well, I answer, 
human nature is depraved. 


‘A man convinced against his will 
Is of the same opinion still.” 


They had misinterpreted the prophecies before the coming 
of the Messiah, understanding the kingship of Christ, and 


WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST? 5&9 


the predictions concerning his kingship literally, and _pre- 
dictions concerning his priesthood metaphorically, and had. 
prepared themselves to receive as their Messiah a king and 
a conqueror; and hence were averse to the Messiah coming 
as he did. Therefore, they put a false interpretation upon 
a prophecy after his coming, which they did not put upon it 
before. They interpreted it of the nation, and not of the 
Son of Man—an interpretation of which we can judge as 
well as they. Let us apply a test or two to it. Suppose it 
was the nation that the prophet described, and grant that it 
suffered. The question arises, for whom did it suffer? For 
whose transgressions was it bruised? The chastisement of 
whose peace was laid upon it? For whose iniquities was it 
bruised, and who were healed by its stripes? And when 
did the nation receive the sentence to be buried as a male- 
factor? And when did it go into the sepulchre of the rich 
man? The Ethiopian eunuch of Candace, who had been 
down to Jesusalem shortly after the crucifixion of the Mes- 
siah, was returning to his home with the prophecy of Isaiah 
before him, and undoubtedly, trying to see if the interpreta- 
tion which the Jews put upon it at Jerusalem could be made 
to apply. He became confused and confounded utterly as he 
read. Philip was directed to join himself to his chariot. As he 
came up, he was reading the verse, ‘‘ He is led as a lamb to 
the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, 
so he openeth not his mouth.” Philip asked him if he un- 
derstood what he read. Mark his answer: ‘‘ How can I 
unless some man should guide me?” admitting his perfect 
confusion. Then the next sentence shows how the confusion 
occurred. He had been trying to apply the interpretation 
of the Jews. He says: “ Of whom does the prophet speak, 
of himself, or some other man?” He saw it could not apply 
to the nation, and then he was ripe for conversion. Philip 
preached unto him Jesus, with such power that he was ready 
to be baptized in the first stream they came to. 


590 EDWARD THOMSON. 


Now, lastly, concerning these prophecies, they are so re- 
markably and so accurately fulfilled in the Messiah, that I 
think the most able English infidel, Bolingbroke, could not 
very well get through with his argument without undertaking 
to account for the fulfilment of these prophecies by supposing 
that Christ actually planned, prearranged, and brought upon 
himself his own sufferings and death, for the purpose of 
giving the disciples, after his death, the benefit of believing 
the old prophecies. ‘To say nothing of the absurdity of a 
man planning his own sufferings and his own death, for the 
sake of imposing upon his disciples, and those who would 
come after them—to say nothing of that, how inadequate is 
the theory ! for it was necessayy, not only that Christ should 
secure his own sufferings and his own death, but to come 
through a particular line, through a particular family, at a 
particular time, and be born at a particular place, which 
would be very difficult for any man to prearrange. 

II. I proceed to notice briefly the Christ of the Evan- 
gelists. He is divinely announced. At the conception, the 
angel of the Lord announces him to his virgin mother ; 
shortly after, the angel of the Lord announces him to his 
reputed father; at his birth, the angel of the Lord an- 
nounces him to the shepherds of Bethlehem, as they tend 
their flocks, as the company of the heavenly host sing 
that choral song, ‘On earth peace, good-will to men, and 
glory to God in the highest!” At his presentation in the 
temple, he is announced by the prophet Simeon, to whom 
God had promised that he should not depart this life before 
he had seen the Lord Christ. He took the infant in his 
arms, exclaiming: ‘‘ Now, Lord, lettest thou thy servant 
depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.” 
He is announced to the wise men by a miraculous star, 
which guided them to Jerusalem, with the inquiry: ‘‘ Where 
is he who is born King of the Jews, for we have seen his 
star in the Hast and are come to worship him?” That 


WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST? 591 


same star guided them to Bethlehem, where, in the manger, 
they recognised the incarnate God, and offered to him gifts 
—gold, frankincense, and myrrh—appropriate gifts at once 
for a King, a Priest, and a Sufferer. 

He is divinely protected. When Herod sent forth to slay 
the infants of Bethlehem, Jesus was safe in Egypt, having 
been conveyed there by his father, through a divine intima- 
tion of the danger that awaited him. When the people of 
his own race conveyed him to the top of a precipice, with a 
view to hurl him over and destroy him, he marvellously and 
miraculously disappeared—safe—from the midst of them. 
When the officers of the Sanhedrim went to arrest him, they 
returned without him, and they gave no other reason than 
this: ‘‘ Never man spake like this man.”’ 

He is divinely educated. He goes not to Rome, or to 
Athens, or to Corinth, or to Egypt, for the purpose of obtain- 
ing divine knowledge. He does not even enjoy the advan- 
tages of an education in Jerusalem. He sits at the feet of 
no philosopher or Rabbi, he graduates at no college, he goes 
to no school; but in the obscure region of Galilee, and in the 
obscure village of Nazareth, he is divinely filled with wis- 
dom; so that at his twelfth year he astonishes the doctors 
of the temple, as well by the questions that he puts as by 
the answers that he returns. When he comes forth in the 
fullness of knowledge—a knowledge of nature and a know- 
ledge of man—his words distil as the dew, as no man’s words 
ever did. His parables, his prayers, his discourses stand 
sublime over all that ever has been uttered by mortal man. 
His works, as well as his words, indicate his divine wisdom 
and his spirit above all. 

He is divinely empowered, so that all nature seems obe- 
dient to his will. He speaks to the winds, and they are still; 
he speaks to the sea, and there is a calm; he speaks to the 
fig-tree, and it withers, not under the curse of man, but under 
the blast of the breath of Christ; he speaks to the blind eye, 


592 EDWARD THOMSON. 


and it sees; to the deaf ear, and it unstops; to the dumb 
tongue, and it speaks; to the lame foot, and it walks; to 
the palsied arm, and it comes forth. He speaks to the mind, 
and it is calm; to the heart, and it is quieted; to the peni- 
tent, and his sins are forgiven. He speaks to the leper, and 
he is cleansed; he speaks to the devils, and they quake; he 
speaks, and his words pierce the dull-toned ear of death, 
and the spirit returns from its mansion of rest, the clay tene- 
ment is reanimated, the heart beats anew, the flush of health 
comes to the cheek, and Lazarus, bound hand and foot in 
his grave-clothes, stands up at the sepulchre. 

He suffers preternaturally in his temptation. Where and 
when was there ever a man since the days of Adam until 
Christ, or afterward, brought face to face with the great 
adversary of souls, and that, too, after a fast that had brought 
down the body and debilitated the mind? So severe was 
this temptation, that angels came to minister to him, not 
because they were necessary, but because angelic ministry 
needed that hour of exhaustion. So, too, in the garden of 
Gethsemane, were not the sufferings supernatural? When 
did man ever suffer like Christ, so that the agonized mind 
pressed the blood out of the body, to stand in great drops on 
the surface? There, too, an angel appears, to strengthen 
the enfeebled body and mind, pressed down under the weight 
which man could not bear. So, too, upon the cross, it was 
not the simple death. Martyrs, many of them, even in the 
heathen world, have died in triumph and in peace. Oh! 
how many have sung in the flames! And yet Christ did not 
go out of the world in that way; but on that cross on which 
he dies, he cried out: “‘My God! my God! why hast thou 
forsaken me?’’ That sinless soul, looking out all round, 
saw nothing but infinite darkness—and in the depths of his 
agony he exclaimed: “‘My God! why hast thou forsaken 
me?’ We cannot explain that agony but by reference to 
the words of Isaiah: ‘‘ When thou shalt make his soul” (not 


WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST? 593 


his body) ‘an offering for sin because he delivered up his 
soul unto death.” 7 

III. Now, lastly, a few words on the Christ of history. 
What I mean by this is, Christ manifested in the world since 
this sacrifice. The Church is the body of Christ. Christ is 
the animating spirit of the Church. Just so long, then, and 
so far as the Church manifests Christ’s spirit, and believes 
Christ’s doctrines, and practises Christ’s precepts, so long 
and so far is it a manifestation of Christ to the world. Now, 
concerning this Church, mark, if you please, that it was 
miraculously and divinely founded. ‘The history recites, as. 
you all know, that Christ rose from the dead; that after his 
resurrection, by the space of forty days, he appeared in 
various forms and at different times to his disciples; that he 
commissioned them to go into all the world and to preach 
the Gospel to every creature, and that he would be with 
them always to the end; that he directed them to begin at 
Jerusalem, and instructed them to wait there until they were 
endued with power from on high; that, in obedience to his 
command, they so waited until the day of Pentecost was 
fully come, when the promise made by the Saviour was ful- 
filled by the coming of the Spirit in the form of a mighty 
rushing wind, which filled the house where they were sitting, 
and cloven tongues, as of fire, sat upon each one of them, 
and they spake as the Spirit gave them utterance, so that 
the dwellers at Jerusalem, and the inhabitants of all other 
_ parts of the earth, gathered on that occasion, heard them 
speak, each in his own language, the wonderful things of 
God. And Peter’ explained how this came so satisfactorily 
that three thousand of them were baptized. And thus mira- 
culously and divinely was the Christian Church founded at 
Jerusalem. | 

Now, say, if you please, that all this is mythical, then 
you have a stream, and a mighty one, too, without a foun- 

2P 


594 EDWARD THOMSON. 


tain; a mountain, and a mighty one, too, without any base ; 
a moral miracle greater than a physical miracle. 

It is more particularly to be observed that they founded 
this Church without eloquence, without learning, without 
wealth, without rank, without office, civil, or military, or 
ecclesiastic ; that they founded it in Jerusalem, where Christ 
was crucified. They founded it at a time when those were 
alive who had arrested, tried, condemned, and executed 
him. They founded it—how? Not by ignoring the cross 
upon which the Victim died, but taking that cross as the 
very symbol, the emblem of their faith—no longer a symbol 
of death, but an emblem of resurrection, making the very 
corner-stone of their Church the allegation that Christ rose 
from the dead. The fact could be contradicted if it was not 
true, and it could be disproved at that time and in that 
place. 

Then, too, the Church miraculously spread, for it did not 
rest in Jerusalem, but went outward through Galilee, Samaria, 
and Damascus, that great city in Syria; not only there, but 
into Arabia, into Egypt, and all along the southern coast 
of the Mediterranean, northward through Asia Minor, plant- 
ing itself in the great cities, in Athens and Greece, crossing 
the Mediterranean, in Sicily, in Italy, even in Rome, and 
planted itself in Norway; but soon it conquered the Roman 
Empire, overthrew all its idols, and silenced its priests, upset 
all its pagan altars everywhere and all its pagan temples, 
and made the cross the flag of the empire, and the symbol _ 
of religion of the nation and the empire. Now, how was this 
done? Other religions have cut their way by the sword; 
this, without any sword, simply by persuasion. Other 
religions had found favor by catering to the human passions ; 
this cut athwart all the passions and the interests of men. 
Other religions have gained and maintained an empire by 
crushing the human mind; this by enlightening, enfran- 
chising, and elevating humanity, instead of repressing it. 


WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST? 595 


The Church, too, was divinely preserved from the first 
age. O what a wonderful preservation! It went not over 
an easy path, but an exceedingly difficult one. Sometimes 
it was in the fire; but, like the three Hebrew children, it 
endured the fire, and had the form of the fourth in the midst. 
Sometimes it was cast to the wild beasts; but, like Daniel in 
the den, it was not destroyed. Sometimes, indeed, the fire 
did burn it; sometimes the wild beast did tear it; but though 
the blood flowed in torrents from the sanctuary, the Church 
was not extinguished, for it grew and grew, as though the 
seed of the Church was derived from the blood of the Saints. | 
Then came a worse period, perhaps, when the Church became 
the object of particular care by the State, and every form 
of prosperity was showered upon her; when hypocrites came 
upon her by hundreds, if not by thousands. This was a 
period of great danger and of great trial—worse than the 
fires of persecution—and yet God preserved her in the midst 
of them. ‘Then came on the dark ages, when the Church 
got into a worse condition—when the State had the Church 
under her control, regulating and patronizing it. Yet in the 
dark ages God always had his faithful seed; and he who, 
long before Luther, uttered the doctrine of justification by 
faith, incurred the condemnation of the Pope and the 
anathemas of the priests. ‘Then came the period of another 
form of trial, as bad as the former—the contentions of the 
reformers ; and yet, in the midst of those fires of contention, 
God preserved his Church. Now we have the period of 
skepticism, commencing ages ago, but still continuing—a 
period of fierce trial; but how, from every conflict with the 
enemy, the Church rises triumphantly, I need not-tell you. 
God preserves his Church. It is not merely in the Church 
that Christ is manifested, but in the consciousness of Chris- 
tians: I mean the experience of the Saints. Now, when a 
man becomes convinced of sin and groans for redemption, it 
is because Christ is preached. You know very well, and I 


596 EDWARD THOMSON. 


know, and God knows, that if you would awaken in any man’s 
breast conviction for sin; if you would have conversion from 
sin, and if you would have sanctification, you must preach 
Christ crucified; and if you do that, you can hardly ever 
fail of producing conviction, conversion, and sanctification. 
Now, are not these realities produced by the Son of Man? 
When a man comes forward trembling and weeping to the 
altar, and you see the very agony of his soul stamping itself 
on his body, is there no reality in it? When he rises con- 
verted, and you see the radiance of his soul beaming out 
everywhere, is there no reality in it? When he uses the 
language of wrestling Jacob, 


“Come, O thou traveller unknown ! 
Whom still I hold, but cannot see ; 
My company before is gone, 
And I am left alone with thee. 
With thee all night I mean to stay, 
And wrestle till the break of day,” 


is there no reality in that? And when a man dies, and you 
gather your friends around to see him die, and they place 
their ears to his lips and ask him how he feels, and he tells 
you, as I have been told, with dying lips, 


** Jesus protects—my fears hbegone— 
What can the Rock of Ages move? 
Safe in thy arms I lay me down— 
Thy everlasting arms of love,” 


is there no reality—is there no Christ there? Is your Christ 
not only the experience of Christendom? Is he not in your 
heart—Christ formed within you, the hope of glory? You 
tell me sometimes that the religion of Christ has not accom- 
plished much. I have heard it said that in this city it had 
not accomplished much, where so many thousands blow the 
trumpet of the Gospel. We cannot expect it to accomplish 
everything. It does not design to break down the mental 


WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST? 597 


organization which God has set up in the soul. A man may 
resist it if he will, and take the consequences; it is not 
designed to force him. 

I took up the paper the other day, and as I did it, I did 
not know what was in it. I said to myself: “‘ Now, what 
kind of an idea would a heathen form of our civilization if 
he were to take up this paper, read it, and get his concep- 
tion from it?” My heart sunk within me as I read about 
a runaway match, a bad case of adultery, and then came an 
assault and battery case. I turned the paper over, and saw 
the Governor’s Message, and just read the headings of it. 
That was enough. ‘Common Schools,” that is a glorious 
idea; ‘‘ Universities, Asylums for the Deaf and Dumb, for the 
Insane and the Idiotic; Hospitals for the Disabled Soldiers.” 
Oh! these, Christianity, are thy triumphs. Here is Christ 
in history yet, just as he was on earth, opening the blind 
eye, unstopping the deaf ear, curing the sick, healing the 
leper, and giving peace to the troubled heart. Yes, Christ 
is in the midst of the Church, in the heart of the Christian, 
and in the civilization which has been established on the 
principles of the Gospel. Now, my friends, just as sure as 
Christ exists and his religion is true, that religion must be 
universal; and just as certain as you are a Christian, it is 
your duty to contribute to the extension of it to the ends of 
the earth. It is not merely optional with us whether we 
give to diffuse this religion or not; we must do it or die. 
Christ hath laid the command upon us; we cannot escape it. 
Oh! let us not try to escape it, but let us rejoice that Christ 
has called us to this ministry, to be the almoners of his divine 
beneficence. Let us joyfully consecrate whatsoever of time, 
of talent, of property, of influence we possess, so that the 
universal reign of Christ may be brought about. 


XX DDK 
THE CRUCIFIXION. 


KRUMMACHER. 
[Frreprich WiLHELM Krummacnuer, late royal court preacher to the 
king of Prussia, was born at Meurs, Lower Rhine, Germany, January 
28th 1796, and died December 10th 1868. His father was a distin- 
guished theologian, and author of the famous ‘ Parables,” in verse. 
Friedrich was educated at Halle and Jena. After a three years’ 
pastorate over a German Reformed congregation in New York city, he 
settled in Berlin in 1847. To the defence of evangelical Lutheran 
doctrines, he consecrated his great gifts of intellect and imagination. 
In eloquence of speech and pen, he was unsurpassed by his contempo- 
raries. The closing words of his last Sermon are said to have epito- 
mized his religious character: ‘Our conversation is in heaven.” 
Among his widely known works are: ‘‘ Elijah the Tishbite ;” “ David, 
the King of Israel ;”’ ‘“‘ The Suffering Saviour,’’ meditations on the last 
days of Christ. No more absorbing works exist in Christian literature. 

From the last named, this Sermon is taken.] 


“ And when they were come unto a place called Golgotha, that is to 
say, A place of a skull, they gave him vinegar to drink mingled with 
gall: and when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink.. And they 
crucified him.”’—Matt. xxvii. 33-5. 


‘THE Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep 
silence before him.” Let these words of the prophet Hab- 
akkuk be the language of our hearts on entering into the 
Most Holy Place of the Gospel history. 

The most solemn of all days in Israel, was, as we well 
know, the great day of atonement, the only day in the year 
on which the high priest entered into the most holy place in 
the temple. Before he approached that mysterious sanc- 
tuary, the law enjoined that he should divest himself of his 
costly garments, and clothe himself from head to foot in a 
plain white linen dress. He then took the vessel with the 

(598) 


THE CRUCIFIXION. 599 


sacrificial blood in his hand, and, thrilling with sacred awe, 
drew back the vail, in order, humbly and devoutly, to ap- 
proach the throne of grace, and sprinkle it with the atoning 
blood. He remained no longer in the sacred place than 
sufficed to perform his priestly office. He then came out 
again to the people, and in Jehovah’s name, announced grace 
and forgiveness to every penitent soul. 

We shall now see this symbolical and highly significant 
act realized in its full and actual accomplishment. ‘The 
immaculate Jesus of whom the whole Old Testament priest- 
hood, according to the divine intention, was only a typical 
shadow, conceals himself behind the thick veil of an increas- 
ing humiliation and agony; that, bearing in his hands his 
own blood, he may mediate for us with God his Father. 


Removed from the sphere of reason’s vision, and only cog-~ 


nisable by the exercise of faith, he realizes and accomplishes 
all that Moses included in the figurative service of the taber- 
nacle. ‘The precise manner in which this was accomplished, 
we shall never entirely fathom with our intellectual powers ; 
but it is certain that he then finally procured our eternal 
redemption. 

My readers, how shall we best prepare ourselves for the 
contemplation of this most solemn and sacred event? At 
least we must endeavor to do so by holy recollection of 
thought, devout meditation, a believing and blissful consider- 
ation of the work of redemption, and by heartfelt and 
grateful adoration before the throne of God. 

May we be enabled thus to draw near by the help of his 
grace and mercy ! 

Once more we return to the road to the cross, and, in 
spirit, mingle with the crowd proceeding to the place of exe- 
cution. ‘They are just passing the rocky sepulchres of the 
kings of Israel. ‘The ancient monarchs sleep in their cells, 
but a dawning resurrection gleams upon their witheréd re- 
mains when the Prince of Life passes by. ‘The procession 


— 


600 FRIEDRICH WILHELM KRUUMACHER. 


then enters the horrible vale of Gehenna, which once reeked 
with the blood of the sacrifices to Moloch. But there is 
another still more dreadful Gehenna ;. and who among us 
would have escaped it, had not the Lamb of God submitted 
to the sufferings which we now see him enduring ? 

We are arrived at the foot of the awful hill; but before 
ascending it, let us cast a look on the crowd behind us, and 
see if, amid all the hatred and rancor that rages there like 
an infernal flame, we can discover any traces of sympathy | 
and heartfelt veneration for the divine sufferer. And lo! 
an estimable little group meets our eye, like a benignant 
constellation in the darkness of the night. O we know them 
already, these deeply-distressed mourners! We first per- 
ceive the pious Salome, the blessed mother of the two “ sons 
of thunder.’’ She desires to set her children an example 
of faithfulness unto death, and we know that both James 
and John, the former of whom was the first martyr for the 
new kingdom of peace, afterward showed themselves per- 
fectly worthy of such a mother. Near Salome walks Mary, 
the near relative of the blessed Virgin. She had also the 
great privilege of seeing her two sons, James the Less and 
Joses, received into the immediate fellowship of the great 
Master. But alas! when the sword came upon the Shep- 
herd, they were also scattered with the rest of the flock; 
while it seemed to their excellent mother a paramount duty 
to appear, instead of her children, and by her own fidelity, 
to cover their flight. And lo! yonder walks Mary Magda- 
lene, sobbing aloud, who had experienced, above others, the 
delivering power of him who came to destroy the works of 
the devil. O how she appears dissolved in grief and sor- 
row! She has only one wish more, and that is, to be able 
to die with him, without whom the earth seems to her only 
a gloomy grave, a den of murderers. 

But who is she with tottering step, leaning on the disciple 
whom Jesus loved, dejected more than all the rest, who 


THE CRUCIFIXION. 601 


covers her grief-worn face? It is the sorely-tried mother 
of our Lord, in whom Simeon’s prophecy is now fulfilled, 
‘“¢ A sword shall pierce through thine own soul also.’ But 
she had scarcely the smallest presentiment that it would be 
accomplished in such a manner. ‘Truly, what she feels, no 
heart on earth ever experienced. But look up, Mary! Cast 
thyself, with all thy grief, into the arms of the Eternal 
Father. Dost thou see thy son going to be crucified? He 
also sees his. He who is crowned with thorns is his Son as 
well as thine. O look at the dear disciple, who though in- 
consolable himself, tries to support the deeply-grieved mother 
of his Lord. What a scene! But how gratifying is it to 
perceive, that love for the Man of Sorrows has not wholly 
become extinct upon earth! Nor shall it ever expire. Be 
not concerned on that account. In that mourning group 
you see only the first divinely-quickened germs of the future 
kingdom of the Divine Sufferer. From a few, a multitude 
that no man can number will ere long proceed. 

After this cursory retrospect. of the Saviour’s attendants, 
let us again put ourselves in motion with the crowd. Only 
a few steps upward, and we reach the end of the dreadful 
pilgrimage. Where are we now? We are standing on the 
summit of Mount Calvary—Golgotha—horrifying name— 
the appellation of the most momentous and awful spot upon 
the whole earth. Behold a naked and barren eminence, en- 
riched only by the blood of criminals, and covered with the 
bones of executed rebels, incendiaries, poisoners, and other 
offscourings of the human race. An accursed spot, where 
love never rules, but where naked justice alone sits enthroned, 
with scales and sword, and from which every passer-by turns 
with abhorrence, a nocturnal rendezvous of jackals and 
hyenas. Only think, this place so full of horrors, becomes 
transformed into “the hill from whence cometh our help,” 
and whose mysteries many kings and prophets have desired 
to see, and did not see them. Yes, upon this awful hill our 


602 FRIEDRICH WILHELM KRUMMACHER. 


roses shall blossom, and our springs of peace and salvation 
burst forth. The pillar of our refuge towers upon this 
height. The Bethany of our repose and eternal refresh- 
ment here displays itself to our view. Truly the ancients 
were in so far correct in their assertion, that Mount Calvary 
formed the centre of the whole earth; for it is the meeting- 
place where the redeemed, though separated in body by land 
and sea, daily assemble in spirit, and greet each other with 
the kiss of love. Not less correct were they in the legend 
that Father Adam was buried beneath Mount Calvary—this 
hill being really Adam’s grave, when by the latter we un- 
derstand the fallen sinful man, whom we all carry about in 
us, and who was crucified with Christ on Golgotha. It is 
strange that to this day the learned dispute‘the position of 
this hill, and that there is scarcely a prospect of ascertain- 
ing the place with certainty. But it was the divine inten- 
tion that the material mount should be exalted into the 
region of that which is spiritual; and such is actually the 
case. It finds its abiding-place in the believing view of the 
world. 

On that awful mount ends the earthly career of the Lord 
of Glory. Behold him, then, the only green, sound, and 
fruitful tree upon earth, and at the root of this tree the axe 
is laid. What a testimony against the world, and what an 
annihilating contradiction to everything that bears the name 
of God and Divine Providence, if the latter did not find its 
solution in the mystery of the representative atonement ! 
Behold him, then, covered with wounds and ignominy, and 
scarcely distinguishable from the malefactors among whom 
he is reckoned. But have patience. In a few years, Jeru- 
salem, that rejected him, glorifies him in the form of a 
smoking heap of ruins, as the beloved Son of the Most 
High, whom no one can assail with impunity; and sur- 
rounded by the lights of the sanctuary, living monuments 
arise, in three quarters of the globe, bearing the inscription, 


THE CRUCIFIXION. 603 


“To Christ, the Redeemer of the world.’ But before these 
things take place, a horrible catastrophe must occur. The 
life of the world only springs forth from the death of the 
Just One. The hour of his baptism with blood has arrived. 
Collect your thoughts, my readers, while you witness it. 

Alas! alas! what is it that now takes place on that bloody 
hill? O heart of stone in our breasts, why dost thou not 
break? Why, thou cold and obdurate rock, dost thou not 
dissolve in tears of blood? Four barbarous men, inured to 
the most dreadful of all employments, approach the Holy 
One of Israel, and offer him, first of all, a stupefying potion, 
composed of wine and myrrh, as usual at executions. The 
Lord disdains the draught, because he desires to submit to 
the will of his Heavenly Father with full consciousness, and 
to drink the last drop of the accursed cup. The execu- 
tioners then take the Lamb of God between them, and begin 
their horrid occupation by tearing, with rude hands, the 
clothes from off his body. ‘There he stands, whose garment 
once was the light, and the stars of heaven the fringe of his 
robe, covered only with the crimson of his blood, and di- 
vested of all that adorned him, not only before men, but 
also in his character as Surety, before God—reminding us 
of Adam in paradise, only that instead of hiding himself 
behind the trees at the voice of God, he cheerfully goes 
toward it; reminding us also of the Old Testament high 
priest, his mysterious type, who, before he entered into the 
Most Holy place to make an atonement, Ae his rich 
attire for a simple white robe. 

After having unclothed the Lord, and left him, by divine 
direction, only his crown of thorns, they lay him down on 
the wood on which he is to bleed; and thus, without being 
aware of it, bring about the moment predicted in Psalm 
xxii., where we hear the Messiah complaining, and saying, 
‘¢ Be not far from me, for trouble is near; for there is none 
to help. Many bulls have compassed me about; strong bulls 


604 FRIEDRICH WILHELM KRUMMACHER. 


of Bashan have beset me round.” O what a dying bed for 
the King of kings! My friends, as often as we repose on 
the downy cushions of divine peace, or blissfully assemble 
in social brotherly circles, singing hymns of hope, let us not 
forget that the cause of the happiness we enjoy is solely to 
be found in the fact, that the Lord of Glory once extended 
himself on the fatal tree for us. 

O see him lie! His holy arms forcibly stretched out upon 
the cross-beam; his feet laid upon each other and bound 
with cords. Thus Isaac once lay on the wood on, Mount 
Moriah. But the voice that then called out of heaven, say- 
ing, “‘ Lay not thine hand upon the lad!” is silent on Cal- 
vary. The executioners seize the hammer and nails. But 
who can bear to look upon what further occurs! A deep 
and anxious silence pervades the crowd, like that which is 
wont to fill the house of mourning when the coffin is nailed 
down. And, probably, not only on earth, but also in heaven 
at that moment, profound and solemn silence reigned. The 
horrible nails from the forge of hell, yet foreseen in the 
sanctuary of eternity, are placed on the hands and feet of 
the righteous Jesus, and the heavy strokes of the hammer 
fall. Reader, dost thou hear the sound? They thunder 
on thy heart, testifying in horrible language of thy sin, and 
at the same time of the wrath of Almighty God. O how 
many sleepers have awoke from their sleep of death under 
the echo of those strokes, and have escaped from Satan’s 
snare! Awake also thou that art asleep in sin, and rouse 
thyself likewise, thou who art lulling thyself in carnal secu- 
rity! How many a proud and haughty heart has been 
broken into salutary repentance by those strokes! O why 
does not thy heart also break? For know that thou didst 
aid in swinging those hammers; and that the most crying 
and impious act which the world ever committed is charged 
to thy account. 

See, the nails have penetrated through, and from both 


THE CRUCIFIXION. 605 


hands and feet gushes forth the blood of the Holy One. O 
these nails have rent the rock of salvation for us, that it 
may pour forth the water of life; have reft the heavenly 
bush of balm, that it may send forth its perfume. Yes, they 
have pierced the handwriting that was against us, and have 
nailed it, as invalid, to the tree; and by wounding the Just 
One, have penetrated through the head of the old serpent, 
like Jael’s nail through the head of Sisera. 0, let no one 
be deceived with respect to him who was thus nailed to the 
cross! hose pierced hands bless more powerfully than 
while they moved freely and unfettered. They are the 
hands of a wonderful architect, who is building the frame 
of an eternal Church—yea, they are the hands of a hero, 
which take from the strong man all his spoil. And believe 
me, there is no help or salvation, save in these hands; and 
these bleeding feet tread more powerfully than when no fet- 
ters restrained their steps. They now walk victoriously over 
the heads of thousands of foes, who shortly before held up 
their heads with boldness. Hills and mountains flow down 
beneath their steps, which they never would have levelled 
unwounded; and nothing springs or blooms in the world, 
except beneath the prints of these feet. 

The most dreadful deed is done, and the prophetic words of 
the Psalm, “They pierced my hands and my feet,” have 
received their fulfilment. The foot of the cross is then brought 
near to the hole dug for it; powerful men seize the rope attach- 
ed to the top of it, and begin to draw, and the cross, with 
its victim, elevates itself and rises to its height. Thus the 
earth rejects the Prince of Life from its surface, and, as it 
seems, heaven also refuses him. But we will let the curtain 
drop over these horrors. Thank God! in that scene of suf- 
fering the Sun of Grace rises over a sinful world, and the 
Lion of Judah only ascends into the region of the spirits 
that have the power of the air, in order, in a mysterious 
conflict, eternally to disarm them on our behalf. 


606 FRIEDRICH WILHELM KRUMMACHER. 


Look what a spectacle now presents itself! The moment 
the cross is elevated to its height, a purple stream falls from 
the wounds of the crucified Jesus through the air, and be- 
dews the place of torture, and the sinful crowd which sur- 
rounds it. This is his legacy to his Church. We render 
him thanks for such a bequest. This rosy dew works .won- 
ders. It falls upon spiritual deserts, and they blossom as 
the rose. We sprinkle it upon the door-posts of our hearts, 
and are secure against destroyers and avenging angels. ‘This 
dew falls on the ice of the north pole, and the accumulated 
frozen mass of ages thaws beneath it. It streams down on 
the torrid zone, and the air becomes cool and _ pleasant. 
Where this rain falls, the gardens of God spring up, lilies 
bloom, and what was black becomes white in the purifying 
stream, and what was polluted becomes pure as the light of 
the sun. That which dew and rain is to nature, which with- 
out them would soon become a barren waste, the crimson 
shower which we see falling from the cross is to human 
minds. There is no possibility of flourishing without it, no 
growth nor verdure, but everywhere desolation, barrenness, 
and death. Let us therefore embrace the cross, and sing 
with the poet :— 


“ Tere, at thy cross, my dying God, 
I lay my soul beneath thy love, 
Beneath the droppings of thy blood, 
Jesus, nor shall it e’er remove !”’ 


There stands the mysterious cross—a rock against which 
the very waves of the curse break, a lightning-conductor 
by which the destroying fluid descends, which would other- 
wise have crushed the world. He who so mercifully en- 
gaged to direct this thunderbolt against himself, hangs 
yonder in profound darkness. Still he remains the Morning 
Star, announcing an eternal Sabbath to the world. Though 
rejected by heaven and earth, yet he forms, as such, the 
connecting link between them both, and the Mediator of 


THE CRUCIFIXION. 607 


their eternal and renewed amity. Ah, see! his bleeding 
arms are extended wide; he stretches them out to every. 
sinner. His hands point.to the east and west; for he shall 
gather his children from the ends of the earth. The top 
of the cross is directed toward the sky; far above the world 
will its effects extend. Its foot is fixed in the earth; the 
cross becomes a wondrous tree, from which we reap the fruit 
of an eternal reconciliation. O, my readers, nothing more 
is requisite than that the Lord should grant us penitential 
tears, and then, by means of the Holy Spirit, show us the 
Saviour suffering on the cross. We then escape from all 
earthly care and sorrow, and rejoice in hope of the glory 
of God. For our justification in his sight, nothing more is 
requisite than that, in the consciousness of our utter help- 
lessness, we lay hold on the horns of that altar which is 
sprinkled with the blood that “‘speaketh better things than 
that of Abel.” And the Man of Sorrows displays to us 
the fullness of his treasures, and bestows upon us, in a super- 
abundant degree, the blessing of the patriarch Jacob on his 
son Joseph :—‘“ The blessings of thy father have prevailed 
above the blessings of my progenitors unto the utmost bound 
of the everlasting hills.” 

There stands erected the standard of the new covenant, 
which, when it is understood, spreads terror around it no 
less than delight, and produces lamentation no less than joy 
and rejoicing. It stands to this day, and will stand for ever, 
and no more fears those who would overturn it than the 
staff of Moses feared when those of the magicians hissed 
around it. And wherever it is displayed, there it is sur- 
rounded by powerful manifestations and miraculous effects. 
We carry it through the nations, and without a blow of the 
sword, conquer one country after another, and one fortress 
after another. Look how the missionary fields become ver- 
dant, and a springtime of the Spirit extends itself over the 
heathen deserts! Hark how the harps of peace resound 
from the isles of the sea; and behold how, between the ice- 


608 FRIEDRICH WILHELM KRUMMACHER. 


bergs of the north, the hearts begin to glow with the fire of 
divine love! From whence these changes? these resurrec- 
tion-wonders? From whence this shaking in the valley of 
dry bones? The cross is carried through the land, and 
beneath its shade the soil becomes verdant and the dead re- 
vive. When this wondrous cross is exhibited, with a correct 
exposition of its hieroglyphic characters, “lightnings, thun- 
derings, and voices’ are wont to proceed. Stones melt in 
its vicinity, rocks rend before it, and waters, long stagnant, 
again ripple, clear and pure, as if some healing angel had 
descended into them. 

“T am crucified with Christ,’’ exclaims the apostle, and 
by these words points out the entire fruit which the cross 
bears for all believers. His meaning is, ‘‘ They are not his 
sins, for which the curse is there endured, but mine; for he 
who thus expires on the cross, dies for me. Christ pays 
and suffers in my stead.” But that of which Paul boasts is 
the property of us all, if by the living bond of faith and 
love, we are become one with the crucified Jesus. We are 
likewise exalted to fellowship with the cross of Christ in the 
sense also that our corrupt nature is condemned to death, 
and our old man, with his affections and lusts, is subjected 
to the bitter process of a lingering death, partly through 
the spirit of purity which dwells and, rules within us, and 
partly by the trials and humiliations which God sends us, 
until the lance-wound of the death of the body makes an 
end of it. But it is while enduring these mortal agonies, 
that we first see the cross of Calvary unfold its full and 
peace-bestowing radiance. It arches itself, like a rainbow, 
over our darkness, and precedes us on our path of sorrow 
‘like a pillar of fire. O that its serene light might also shine 
upon our path through this vale of tears, and as the tree of 
liberty and of life, strike deep its roots in our souls! Ap- 
prehended by faith, may it shed its heavenly fruit into our 
lap, and warm and expand our hearts and minds beneath its 
shade ! 


>, 
CHRISTIAN VICTORY. - 


HALL. 

[Newman Hatt, D.D., has been termed ‘‘ Bishop of Southwark”— 
the working people’s district in London. As pastor of Surrey Chapel, 
he ministers to fourteen hundred active members, oversees thirteen 
Sunday schools having fifty-five hundred scholars, and expends about 
twenty thousand dollars annually for missionary objects. He was 
born in 1816, graduated at the London University, and was minister 
of the Congregational Church of Hull for twelve years. In 1854 he 
took charge of Surrey Chapel. His touching appeal, ‘‘ Come to Jesus,” 
has sold over fifty thousand copies. In 1867 he visited the United 
States and preached a series of ‘‘ Sermons,’’ remarkable for simplicity, 
eloquence of thought, and earnestness of appeal. These have been 
published by Sheldon & Co., New York, and by their permission the 
following Sermon is extracted. | 


“ To him that that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, 
and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, 
which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.” —Rev. ii. 17. 


Tue Christian life is often compared in Scripture to a 
warfare. Followers of Jesus are ‘soldiers.’ They are 
exhorted to put on “the whole armor of God.” They “ fight 
the good fight of faith.” Some of you have long been 
engaged in the conflict: others have more recently entered 
upon it. But, whether young or old in the Christian career, 
all find it necessary to be constantly stirred up to watchful- 
ness against the never-ceasing assaults of the foe. It is not 
enough to put on the armor and to commence the battle. He 
that overcometh, and he alone, will receive the salutation, 
“Well done, good and faithful servant,’’—he alone shall 
‘‘Jay hold upon eternal life.” 

But we are not left to fight without encouragement. As 

20 2 (609) 


610 NEWMAN HALL. 


generals before a battle go in front of their troops to stimu- 
late them to valor, so Christ, the Captain of our salvation, 
leads on the consecrated hosts of his elect; and having him- 
self set us a glorious example of valor and victory, animates 
us to follow in his footsteps by the ‘exceeding great and 
precious promises” of his Word. Christian warrior !—let 
your eye be lifted up to Him. Behold Him beckoning you 
onward. Listen to Him, as from his throne of glory He 
exhorts you to persevering valor against the foe; and pray 
earnestly that his promise may be fulfilled in your case: 
‘‘To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden 
manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a 
new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that 
receiveth it.” 

Let us consider first, the promise; then, the condition 
attached to it. 

J. THE PROMISE. 

This is twofold,—the Hidden Manna and the White Stone. 

1. The Hidden Manna.—God fed the Israelites in the 
wilderness with manna. <A portion of this was laid by in the 
ark, and thus was hidden from public view. It is here 
referred to as a figurative representation of the spiritual 
blessings bestowed upon the victor in the heavenly fight. 
Christ, speaking of the manna as a type of himself, said, 
‘“T am the bread which came down from heaven.’ The 
manna in the wilderness sustained the life of the Israelites. 
But there is another life more important than that of the 
body. By sin the soul is dead, dead toward God. By the 
Holy Spirit, the “‘ dead in trespasses and sins”’ are ‘‘ quick- 
ened,’’ or made alive. As the life of the new-born infant 
cannot be preserved without food, so the new spiritual life, 
which God imparts, needs continual support. Both the life, 
and the nourishing of it, come from Christ, and Christ alone. 
By His sacrifice that life becomes possible; and by his Spirit 
working within our hearts that life becomes actual. He sus- 


CHRISTIAN VICTORY. 611 


tains as well as imparts spiritual vitality. He is the food 
of our faith: ‘believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou 
shalt be saved.” He is the food of our love: “we love Him 
because He first loved us.”” He is the food of our obedience: 
“the love of Christ constraineth us.” He is the food of our 
peace: for when ‘justified by faith, we have peace with God 
through Jesus Christ our Lord.” He is the food of our joy: 
for if “we joy in God” it is “through Jesus Christ our 
Lord.” 

The manna which sustained the Israelites was evidently 
the gift of God. And so this “hidden manna” is from 
heaven. It is no contrivance of man—no philosophy of 
human invention. It isa divine plan for the salvation of 
our ruined race. ‘“‘ God so loved the world that He gave his 
only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should 
not perish but should have everlasting life.’ That manna 
in the wilderness was sweet to the taste; yet they who fed 
on it grew weary of it. But the more we eat of the bread of 
life, the more we relish it—the greater is our appetite for it. 
That manna in the wilderness was needed daily. And so 
with this heavenly bread. Yesterday’s supply will not suffice 
for to-day. The prayer is as needful for the soul as for the 
body: “Give us this day our daily bread.’ But if that 
manna was needed daily, so it was supplied; none went in 
vain at the appointed season—and no soul that “‘ hungers and 
thirsts after righteousness” is sentempty away. The manna 
was supplied to the Israelites till they came to the promised 
land—so God has promised that His grace shall not fail His 
people through all their wanderings. 

It is spoken of as the ‘“‘ hidden manna.” Such is the 
Christian’s life. ‘Our life is A¢d with Christ in God.” The 
outward effects of it may be seen, but the inner life is invisi- 
ble. So is the nourishing of the life. You may see the 
Christian on his knees, you may hear the words which ‘he 
utters, but you cannot see the streams of divine influence. 


612 NEWMAN HALL. 


which are poured into his spirit; nor hear the sweet whispers 
of divine love which fill him with joy; nor comprehend the 
peace passing all understanding which he is permitted to 
experience. Unbelievers are often amazed at what they see 
in the Christian. He is troubled on every side, yet not in 
despair. Waves of sorrow beat upon his frail vessel, yet it 
does not sink. Men now threaten, now allure, but he holds 
on his way. What to others is an irresistible charm, is no 
attraction to him. What is a terror to others, deters not 
him. Why does he not faint beneath the burden? why does 
he not sink in the storm? Because he eats of the ‘‘ hidden 
manna.” ‘The secret of the Lord is with them that fear 
Him.” ‘“ He hath taken him into his banqueting-room, and 
the banner over him is love.” 

Were this promise merely the reward of final victory, that 
victory itself would never be gained. We need to eat this 
manna during our pilgrimage. We cannot live without it. 
Every act of overcoming will be followed by a verification 
of the promise; ‘ I will give him to eat of the hidden manna.”’ 
Yet we must look beyond the present life for its full accom- 
plishment. ‘To him that overcometh”’ at the last, ‘shall 
be given the hidden manna,” in a sense of which at present: 
we have but a very faint conception. As the manna was 
hidden in the ark, and that ark was hidden behind the cur- 
tain of the Holy of Holies, so the Christian’s hope, “as an 
anchor of the soul, sure and steadfast, enters into that which 
is within the veil.” Those joys we cannot yet conjecture ; 
their splendor is too intense; we should be blinded by 
excessive light; we should be overpowered by the excellent 
glory. One look of heaven would unfit us for earth. It is 
wisely appointed that at present this manna should in one 
sense be hidden, even from ourselves. We are as yet but 
babes—such strong meat would not suit us now; we must 
be content with simpler fare. But Oh! if the manna, though 
at present so partially and imperfectly appreciated, can pro- 


CHRISTIAN VICTORY. 613 


duce such peace and joy, what must be the bliss of entering 
into the holiest of all, and there, in the presence of God - 
himself, feasting on it eternally! Unceasing, unlimited 
reception of divine influences into the soul! Uninterrupted 
fellowship with Him who is the only Fountain of life, and 
purity, and happiness! Perfect love! But at present, such 
full fruition is ‘hidden. ‘‘ Now we see through a glass 
darkly ;” “now we know but in part ;” “it doth not yet 
appear what we shall be.’”’ But how unspeakably blessed 
are they to whom, partially in this world and perfectly in 
the next, the promise shall be verified: ‘‘'To him that over- 
cometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna!” 

2. The White Stone.—Reference is made to the tessera 
hospitalis, the tally or token of hospitality employed by the 
ancients. At a time when houses of public entertainment 
were less common, private hospitality was the more neces- 
sary. When one person was received kindly by another, or 
a contract of friendship was entered into, the tessera was 
given. It was so named from its shape, being four-sided ; 
it was sometimes of wood, sometimes of stone; it was divided 
into two by the contracting parties; each wrote his own 
name on half of the tessera ; then they exchanged pieces, 
and therefore the name or device on the piece of the tessera 
which each received, was the name the other person had 
written upon it, and which no one else knew but him who 
received it. It was carefully prized, and entitled the bearer 
to protection and hospitality. Plautus, in one of his plays, 
refers to this custom. Hanno inquires of a stranger where 
he may find Agorastocles, and discovers to his surprise, that 
he is addressing the object of his search. ‘If so,’ he says, 
‘compare, if you please, this hospitable tessera ; here it is; 
I have it with me.” Agorastocles replies, ‘It is the exact 
counterpart; I have the other part at home.’ Hanno’ 
_responds, ‘QO, my friend! I rejoice to meet thee; thy father 
was my friend, my guest; I divided with him this hospitable 


614 NEWMAN HALL. 


tessera.” ‘‘ Therefore,” said Agorastocles, ‘ thou shalt have 
a home with me, for I reverence hospitality.” . 

Beautiful illustration of gospel truth! The Saviour visits 
the sinner’s heart, and being received as a guest, bestows 
the white stone, the token of His unchanging love. It is 
not we who, in the first instance, desire this compact. Far 
from it! But Jesus, anxious to bless us, kindly forces him- 
self on our regard. By His Spirit, He persuades us to give 
Him admission to our hearts. ‘‘ Behold, I stand at the door 
and knock; if any man hear my voice and open the door, I 
will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”’ 
We often disregarded His appeal. Yet, with what con- 
descending kindness did He persevere! And when at length 
we opened the door, we saw Him laden with blessings which 
He had been long waiting to bestow. The feast which was 
then spread was all of His providing. He who went to be 
‘‘ the guest of one that was a sinner,’’ inverts the usual course. 
He invites himself and brings the feast. What have we fit 
to set before so august and holy a visitant? But He who 
chooses the sinner’s heart as His banqueting-chamber, spreads 
there His choicest gifts, His exceeding great and precious 
promises, His finished sacrifice, His human sympathy, His 
perfect example, His pure precepts, His all-prevailing inter- 
cession, the various developments of His infinite love. He 
‘“‘sups with us,’’ and makes us “‘sup with Him.” He enrolls 
our name among His friends. ‘He makes an everlasting 
covenant with us, ordered in all things and sure.” He pro- 
mises never to leave nor forsake us. He tells us we “shall | 
never perish.” He gives us the tessera, the Waite Strons! 

Is not this ‘“‘the witness of the Spirit,” the “earnest of 
the promised possession?’ Does not “the Spirit witness 
with our spirit that we are born of God?’ Does not our 
experience of the friendship of Jesus correspond’ with what 
we are taught of it in the Scriptures? ‘I know in whom I 
have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep 


CHRISTIAN VICTORY. 615 


that which I have committed unto Him, against that day. 
The ‘love of God is shed abroad’’ in the heart of the 
believer. He says, with humble confidence, “‘ My Lord, and 
my God!’ ' 

On this white stone is inscribed a “new name.” The part 
of the tessera which each of the contracting parties received 
contained the name of the other. And, therefore, “the new 
name”’ on the ‘‘ white stone,’’ which he that overcometh 
receives, is that of Him who gives it. By the unbeliever, 
God is known as Power, as Majesty, as Justice. He is 
dreaded. “The carnal mind is enmity against God.’’ The 
Christian alone knows Him as ‘‘ Love”! Jehovah has now 
“a new name.’ He was once Ruler—now He is Friend; 
He was once Judge—now He is Father. Reader! do you 
know God by His “new name’’? Do you so know Him as 
to wish no longer to hide from Him, but to hide zn Him, as the 
only home the universe can furnish in which you can be safe 
and happy? Have you learned to say, ‘‘ Our Father which 
art in heaven?’ If we have indeed received this “‘ white 
stone,” let us continually be reading the “new name” 
engraven on it. Here I am assured that the Holy Ghost is 
my Teacher, my Guide, my Comforter; that the Eternal 
Word, the only begotten Son, is my Saviour, my Friend, my 
Brother ; that the infinite Jehovah is my Father, and that 
‘“‘like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth 
them that fear Him.” 

We are told that no man knoweth this new name, “ saving 
he that receiveth it.” He knows it for himself, but no one 
else can read it for him. Thus it resembles the ‘ hedden 
manna.” ‘The frivolous may deride, fools may mock, the 
unbeliever may deny, the skeptic may bring forth his objec- 
tions in all the pride of a false philosophy ; but the Christian, 
even if unable to reply to the caviller, or to make intelligible 
to any other mind his own strong assurance, has an evidence 
within him which nothing can shake, for God has written on 
his heart, ‘‘ His new best name of Love.” 


616 NEWMAN HALL, 


Fellow-pilgrims to the heavenly Canaan, how precious is 
this token! We are travellers through the desert ; for though 
the enjoyments of earth are many, yet this life, compared with 
what is to come, is a wilderness. We are away from home; 
we are exposed to privations, tempests, foes; we constantly 
needarefuge. But we are never far from the house of a friend. 
Everywhere, in every city and every village, on the desert and 
on the ocean, in the solitude of secrecy, and in the solitude 
of a crowd, in the bustle of business, and in the sick chamber, 
a Friend is at hand, who will always recognise the white 
stone He gave us as a token of His love. We have only to 
present it to claim the fulfilment of His promise. How wide 
will the door be thrown open for our reception! What divine 
entertainment we shall receive! What safety from peril! 
what succor in difficulty! what comfort in trouble! what 
white raiment! what heavenly food! O, that we valued 
the tessera more, that we sought more frequent interviews 
with our heavenly Friend, that we more habitually resorted 
as invited guests to Jesus, and dwelt in Him as the home of 
our souls! We shall never find the door closed against us ; 
we shall never be received reluctantly ; He will never allow 
us to think that we are intruders. Jesus is never ashamed 
of His poor relations, nor treats them coldly because they 
need His help. The greater our distress, the more shall we 
prove His liberality and tender sympathy. 

And as regards this stone, as well as the hidden manna, 
we can look beyond the present life. A day is coming when 
we shall be compelled to leave the homes of earth, however 
endeared. We must embrace for the last time the friends 
united to us as our own souls. Though we have travelled 
along the road many a year together, we must now separate, 
and go on alone. They may accompany us to the river side, 
but we must cross it by ourselves. What cheering voice will 
greet us then? What kind roof will receive us then? What 
loving friend will welcome us then ? 

But we shall not have left our best treasure behind us! 


CHRISTIAN VICTORY. 617 


No! we shall carry the white stone with us; and with this 
we shall look for no inferior abode, but with unhesitating 
step shall advance at once right up to the palace of the Great 
King. We present the tessera; the “‘new name”’ is legible 
upon it; the angelic guards recognise the symbol; the ever- 
lasting gates lift up their heads; and the voice of Jesus 
himself. invites us to enter, saying, ‘‘ Come, ye blessed of 
my Father, inherit the kingdom!’ 

Such is the welcome that every soul shall experience to 
whom the promise is fulfilled: ‘‘ I will give him a white stone, 
and in the stone a new name ao which no man know eth, 
saving he that receiveth it.’ 

Il. THE CoNDITION ANNEXED TO THE PROMISE, ‘“‘ TO HIM 
THAT OVERCOMETH !” 

A great war is going on between the church and the pow- 
ers of darkness. It is not an affair of strategy between two 
vast armies, wherein skilful manceuvres determine the issue, 
many on either side never coming into actual combat; but 
every Christian has to fight hand to hand with the enemy. 
We cannot be lost in the crowd. We may not stand in the 
middle of the hollow square, without sharing the perils of 
the outer rank. Every Christian must not only occupy his 
post in the grand army, but must personally grapple with 
the foe. 

Before conversion there was no fighting. The devil’s sug- 
gestions and the heart’s inclinations were allied. Then we 
did the enemy’s bidding, or were lulled to sleep by his intoxi- 
cating cup. But when light shone into the soul, and we 
strove to escape, the struggle began. God, as our Creator 
and Redeemer, justly demands our obedience and love. 
Whatever interferes with these claims, is an enemy sum- 
moning us to battle. The world of frivolity is our foe. How 
numerous and insinuating are its temptations—the more 
perilous because of the difficulty of defining them! 

Moreover, lawful pleasures and necessary cares become 
dangerous when they cease to be subordinate to the love of 


618 NEWMAN HALL. 


God. The enjoyments He bestows and the labors He appoints, 
are calculated to minister to godliness,—and yet they may be 
perverted to idolatry, by our forgetting Him on whom our 
highest thoughts should be fixed. What danger is there that 
things in themselves holy and beautiful may thus become 
pernicious and destructive ! 

The flesh too, furnishes its contingent to the army of our 
foes. Not that any of our natural appetites, being divinely 
bestowed, can have in them the nature of sin. No! the 
flesh, as God made it, is pure and holy. But those instincts, 
which, regulated by the revealed will of their Author, are 
‘“‘holiness to the Lord,’’ may, by unhallowed gratification, 
become those ‘fleshly lusts which war against the soul.” 
As we carry about with us these animal propensities, there 
is necessity for constant vigilance lest our own nature, being 
abused, should become our destroyer. 

Inbred depravity lurks in the heart of even the true 
believer. ‘Though dethroned, it is not. completely expelled. 
With what selfishnes, covetousness, vanity, hastiness of 
temper, uncharitableness, have we not to contend! Who 
has not some sin which most easily besets him? How varied 
are the forms of unbelief! Spiritual pride, too, corrupts 
our very graces, piety itself furnishing an occasion of evil, 
so that when we have conquered some temptation or per- 
formed some duty, our victory is often tarnished, our holy 
things corrupted, by our falling into the snare of self- 
complacency. 

Above all, there is that great adversary who “‘ goeth about 
as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” He avails 
himself of the world, and the flesh, and the infirmities of the 
spirit, to tempt the soul to sin. This is no fable, although 
one of Satan’s most skilful stratagems is to make men dis- 
believe in his existence. Overlooked or despised, a foe is 
already half victorious. But the Captain of our Salvation, 
in his word, often warns us both of the craft and of the violence 
of our adversary. We sometimes read of ‘ the wiles of the 


CHRISTIAN VICTORY. 619 


devil; and sometimes of “the fiery darts of the wicked 
one.” They who fail to watch and pray, are sure to be 
vanquished by such a foe. 

These are our enemies! And if we would possess the 
promise we must ‘‘ overcome.’’ A mere profession of religion 
is of no avail. It is not enough for our name to appear on 
the muster-roll of the camp. Many wear the soldier’s dress 
who know nothing of the soldier’s heart. Many are glad to 
glitter on the grand parade who fall off from the hard-fought, 
blood-stained battle-field. It is not enough to buckle on our 
armor; many do this, and lay it aside again. We must 
devote ourselves entirely and unreservedly to this great daily 
battle of life. There is no exemption of persons. Women 
must fight, as well as men; the tender and the timid must 
be as Amazons in the conflict. Children must carry the 
shield, and wield the sword. The aged and infirm must keep 
the ranks. The sick and wounded must not be carried to 
the rear. No substitute can be provided, and there is no 
discharge in this war. There is no exemption on account 
of circumstances. ‘The rich and poor, the learned and the 
unlearned, the cheerful and the sad, all must fight. No 
accumulation of trouble, no unexpected death of friends, can 
be an excuse for laying down our arms. We must go to the 
marriage feast, and we must attend the funeral procession, 
as Warriors, wearing our armor and grasping our weapons. 
We must be like those spoken of by Nehemiah, “ every man 
with one hand wrought in the work, and with the other hand 
held a weapon.”’ There is no exemption of place. Foes lie 
In wait for the Christian wherever he goes—in the mart of 
commerce, in the busy workshop, when he returns to his 
home, when he rests on his bed, in the bustle of the day, in 
the silence of the night, in the circle of his friends, in the 
bosom of his family, in society, alone, in the city, in ,the 
fields, in his walks of benevolence, in his private meditations, 
in the church, in his secret retirement, when he worships 
with the great congregation, and when he enters his closet 


620 NEWMAN HALL. 


and shuts the door. He can never elude the enemy; he 
carries the foe in his own breast; the conflict ceases not! 
There is no exemption of téme, no season of rest. No truce 
is sounded. Satan never beats a retreat, except to lead us 
into an ambuscade. No white flag comes out that can be 
trusted. If we parley, itis at our peril; if we pause, we are 
wounded or taken captive. Wars on earth may often ter- 
minate by mutual agreement. It is a war of extermination ; 
no quarter is given; either we must trample Satan under 
foot, or Satan will drag us down to hell! 

It is a warfare until death. While we are in the body it 
will be always true—‘“ We wrestle.” The oldest Christian 
cannot lay aside his weapons. ‘‘ Having done all, stand.” 
A great word that! ‘Having done all!’ ‘ What!” you 
may say, ‘‘after a long life of conflict, surely I may put 
aside my armor, and sheathe my sword, and recline on some 
sunny bank, and enjoy myself after my victory!” No; you 
must not expect it; “having done all’ it is enough if you 
stand at bay on the battle-ground; all you can hope for in 
this world is to maintain your post, still defying the foe, who 
will be still meditating fresh attacks. You will never be able 
to say with St. Paul “I have fought a good fight,” until you 
can also say, “‘ I have finished my course.” 

It is not the appearance of fighting. It is not a few faint, 
irresolute strokes. ‘‘So fight I,” said the apostle, “not as 
one that beateth the air.’”’ We must be resolute, determined, 
in earnest, giving our enemy no advantage. We must ‘“ not 
give place to the devil.”’ We must watch against the smallest 
beginnings of sin. By “keeping the heart with all diligence,”’ 
by putting on ‘the whole armor of God,” by having faith 
as our shield, righteousness as our breastplate, the hope of 
salvation as our helmet, by keeping ‘‘ the sword of the Spirit ”’ 
bright with exercise, ‘praying with all prayer,” standing 
near our Captain, looking to Him, relying upon Him, know- 
ing that “without Him we can do nothing,”—so must we 
fight! All this is necessary, if we would overcome. 


CHRISTIAN VICTORY. 621 


It is not so easy to fight this fight as some suppose. It is 
not a true faith merely, an evangelical creed, a scriptural. 
church, a comfortable sermon once or twice a week, a little 
Sabbath-keeping,an agreeable pause in your pleasures, giving 
to them a new relish—it is not this which constitutes Chris- 
tianity. You that think religion so very easy a thing, have 
a care lest, when too late, you find that you knew not what 
true religion meant. Hasy? A depraved being to trample 
upon his lusts—a proud being to lie prostrate with humility 
and self-reproach—they that are “slow of heart to believe,” 
to receive the Gospel as little children? Easy? To “ crucify 
the flesh,” ‘to deny ungodliness,”’ “to cut off a right hand, 
and to pluck out aright eye?” Easy? ‘To be in the world, 
and yet not of the world—to come out from it, not by the 
seclusion of the cloister, but by holiness of life—to be diligent 
in its duties, yet not absorbed by them; appreciating its 
innocent delights, and yet not ensnared by them; beholding 
its attractions, and yet rising superior to them? LHasy? To 
live surrounded by objects which appeal to the sight, and 
yet to endure as seeing what is invisible? Hasy? ‘To pray 
and see no answer to prayer, and still pray on—to fight 
this battle, and find fresh foes ever rising up, yet still to fight 
on—to be harassed with doubts and fears, and yet walk on 
in darkness, though we see no light, staying ourselves upon 
God? Hasy? ‘To be preparing for a world we have never 
visited, in opposition to so much that is captivating in a 
world where we have always dwelt, whose beauties we have 
seen, whose music we have heard, whose pleasures we have 
experienced? Hasy? ‘To resist that subtle foe who has 
cast down so many of the wise and the mighty? Hasy? 
When Jesus says it is a “strait gate,” and that if we would 
enter we must “strive,” bidding us “‘ take up our cross daily, 
deny ourselves, and follow Him?’ Ah! it is no soft flowery, 
meadow, along which we may languidly stroll, but a rough, 
craggy cliff that we must climb. ‘‘'T'o him that overcometh !” 
It is no smooth, placid stream, along which we may dreamily 


622 NEWMAN HALL, 


float, but a tempestuous ocean we must stem. “To him that 
overcometh !’’ It is no easy lolling in a cushioned chariot, 
that bears us on without fatigue and. peril. The trumpet 
has sounded to arms; it is not peace, but war, war for liberty, 
war for life, on the issue of which our everlasting destiny 
depends! If we are to be saved, we must ‘ overcome.” 

But though the conflict is arduous, the encouragements 
are great. We have armor of proof. We have a mighty 
Champion. Victory is insured to the brave. Others who 
stood on the same battle-field and fought with the same 
enemies, are now enjoying an eternal triumph. Not one 
faithful warrior ever perished. Their foes were not fewer 
than ours, their strength was not greater. They overcame 
by the same “blood of the Lamb” on which we rely. 


‘Once they were mourning here below, 
And wet their couch with tears ; 
They wrestled hard, as we do now, 
With sins, and doubts, and fears.” 


But they are wearing their crowns, they are enjoying their 
rest; and the feeblest and most unworthy of our own day, 
trusting in the same Saviour, shall inherit the same promise. 
Then let us overcome. Sheathe not the sword, and it shall 
never be wrested from you; lay not down the shield, and no 
fiery dart shall ever penetrate it; face the foe, and he shall 
never trample you down, never drive you back. Listen to 
your Captain; how he animates you onward! Look to the 
crown He is ready to bestow upon you; eat of the hidden 
manna which He gives; read the name in the “‘ white stone,” 
—the name of God,—His name of love, recorded for your. 
encouragement; and thus be animated to walk worthy of 
this holy alliance, and not to allow the foe to wrench from 
you such an assurance of divine favor, such a passport to 
heavenly bliss. A little more conflict, and that ‘ white 
stone’”’ shall introduce you to the inheritance above, where, 


CHRISTIAN VICTORY. 623 


in the everlasting repose of the inner sanctuary, you shall 
without intermission eat of the hidden manna. 


“Then let my soul march boldly on, 
Press forward to the heavenly gate ; 
There peace and joy eternal reign, 
And glittering robes for conquerors wait.” 


Some of you may consider this subject visionary and 
unreal. You say, “I know nothing of this warfare. I know 
what the conflict of business is, the race of fashion, the bustle 
of toil or pleasure; but to anxiety about spiritual things I 
amastranger.’’ You are enjoying peace—but—what peace ? 
There is a captive in a dungeon—his limbs are fast chained 
to the walls—yet he is singing songs. Howis it? Satan 
has given him to drink of his drugged cup, and he does not 
know where he is. Look at that other. He says, “it is 
peace.” There is truly no fighting, but he is grovelling in 
the dust, and the heel of his foe is upon his neck. Such is 
the peace of every one going on in his wickedness, unpardoned 
and unsaved. ‘Taken captive by the devil at his will.” 
Chained in Satan’s boat, you are swiftly gliding down the 
stream to ruin, and because it is smooth, you dream that it 
is safe! What is the difference between the saint and the 
sinner? Not that in the saint there is no sin. Not that in 
the sinner there is never a thought about God. ‘The differ- 
- ence is this—that the saint is overcoming his sin; but the 
sin is overcoming the sinner. QO, what a terrible thing if sin 
have the upper hand! No ‘hidden manna” is yours. The 
symbols of religion you may look at, but real religion must 
be a stranger to you. You know not its enjoyment. You 
do not taste it. Itis a hidden thing. Heaven too will be 
hidden. You hear of its gates of pearl—but they will never 
open to you. You may catch the distant accents of its songs. 
—but in those songs you will never join. And that “ white 
stone’’ cannot be yours. You have no joyful anticipation 


624 NEWMAN HALL, 


of heaven—but a fearful looking for of fiery indignation— 
or else the insensate resolve not to think at all. And the 
‘‘new name’’—no! you cannot read it! You know God by 
no such name as makes you seek His company. The thought 
of Him renders you unhappy, and therefore you banish it 
from your mind. You are not now alarmed, but soon the 
spell may be broken, and you may find the chains riveted 
upon your soul for ever. 

I fancy I hear you say, “I wish that before it is too late, 
I could escape! But mine is a hopeless case. My heart is 
hardened against the Gospel, and evil habit has so got the 
mastery over me, that I have no power to begin this conflict !”’ 
No, you have no power; but One has visited this world, 
and taken our nature, who can help you. The mighty Son 
of God became the suffering Son of Man, that He might be 
the Liberator of our enslaved race. He burst open the 
prison doors, that captive souls might escape. He stands 
near you, ready to break off your fetters and strengthen you 
to fight the enemy who has so long oppressed you. Tell Him 
your simple but sad tale; how helpless, how miserable, how 
ruined you are! Tell Him you want to be saved, but 
know not how to begin the work, and ask Him both to begin 
and complete it for you! Let your prayer be this: “ Be 
merciful to me a sinner ;” and He who “ came to destroy the 
works of the devil,” He ‘‘ whose nature and property is ever 
to have mercy and to forgive,’’ will receive your “ humble 
petitions; and though you be tied and bound with the chain 
of your sins, He, in the pitifulness of His great mercy, will 
loose you.” He will pardon your past shameful concessions 
to the foe, and, arraying you in ‘‘ the whole armor of God,”’ 
and animating you with His Holy Spirit, He will enable you 
so to fight against the world, the flesh, and the devil, that 
you also shall share in the prize of them that overcome; 
you also shall eat of the “hidden manna,” and receive the 
‘‘ white stone.”’ . 


> adi 
THE RESURRECTION OF OUR LORD. 


SIMPSON. 


{Matruew Simpson, D. D., LL.D., a Bishop and the incomparable 
orator, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, was born at Cadiz, Ohio, 
June 21st 1810. From childhood a diligent student, he mastered the Ger- 
man language, so as to read Luther’s version of the Bible, in his ninth 
year. He graduated from Alleghany College, Meadville, Pennsylvania, 
and in 1833 received a medical diploma. His heart, however, was 
given to Christ’s work, and the following year he became a minister 
in the Pittsburgh Conference. In 1839 he was elected president of 
Asbury University, Greencastle, Indiana. Nine years later the Gen- 
eral Conference appointed him editor of the ‘Western Christian 
Advocate,” and in 1852 he was called to the episcopate. His residence 
—a gift of his friends—is in Philadelphia. Throughout the late con- 
test, Bishop Simpson did much to strengthen the hands of President 
Lincoln, and to nerve the spirit of the nation to endure any sacrifice 
for the cause of the Union. His zeal and executive abilities have 
enabled him to perform herculean labors; but his overtaxed constitu- 
tion demanded a rest from all work during the summer of 1871. A 
magnetic power of personal sympathy, exhaustless stores of illustra- 
tion from nature and literature, picturesqueness of expression, are 
elements of his almost undefinable eloquence. A volume of his Ser- 
mons is in contemplation, and may appear next year, if his health 
and time permit their revision. The following is an unedited discourse, 
reported as delivered on Easter Sunday, 1866.] 


“ But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits 
of them that slept.’’—1 Cor. xv. 20. 


A LITTLE more than eighteen hundred years ago, as the 
light of the morning was breaking around the walls of 
Jerusalem, there was a guard placed about a sepulchre in 
a small garden near the walls of the city. They were 
guarding a grave. Some strange scenes had occurred on 
the Friday before. While a2 man whom they had taken 

2R . (625) 


626 MATTHEW SIMPSON. 


from the hills of Galilee and around the little lake of Caper- 
naum had been hanging on the cross crucified as a malefac- 
tor, strange signs appeared in the heavens, and on the earth, 
and in the temple. It was rumored that he had said he 
would rise the third morning. The third morning was com- 
ing, and, as the light began to break in the Hast, there came 
two women silently and sadly wending their way among the 
tents that were pitched all around the city of Jerusalem; 
they had sojourned all night in the tents, for as yet the 
gates of the city had not been opened. They came to see 
the sepulchre, and were bringing spices in their hands, 
They loved the man who had been crucified as a malefactor, 
because of his goodness, his purity, and his compassion. 
They seemed to be almost the only hearts on earth that did 
love him deeply, save the small circle of friends who had 
gathered around him. There had been curses upon his 
head as he hung on the cross—curses from the bystanders, 
curses from the soldiers, curses from the people? They 
cried: “ Away with him; his blood be on us and on our 
children !”’ and on that morning there were none but a few 
feeble, obscure, heart-broken friends that dared to come 
near his grave. 

A little more than eighteen hundred years have passed 
away, and on the anniversary of that day, the morning of 
the first day of the week, the first Sabbath after the full 
moon and the vernal equinox, at the same season, the whole 
world comes to visit that grave. The eyes of princes and 
of statesmen, the eyes of the poor and the humble, in all 
parts of the earth, are turned toward that sepulchre. All 
through Europe, men and women are thinking of that grave, 
and of him who lay in it. All over Western lands, from 
ocean to ocean, on mountain top and in valley, over broad 
prairies and deep ravines, the eyes and hearts of people are 
gathered round that grave. In the darkness of Africa, 
here and there, we see them stretching out their hands 


RESURRECTION OF OUR LORD. 627 


towards it. Along from the coasts of India and the heights 
of the Himalayas, they have heard of that grave, and are 
bending toward it. The Chinese, laying aside their preju- 
dices, have turned their eyes westward, and are looking 
toward that sepulchre. Along the shores of the seas, over 
the mountain tops and in the valleys, the hearts of the 
people have not only been gathering around the grave, but 
they have caught a glimpse of the rising inmate, who as- 
cended in his glory toward heaven. The song of jubilee 
has gone forth, and the old men are saying, ‘‘ The Lord is 
risen from the dead.’”’ The young men and matrons catch 
up the glowing theme, and the little children around our 
festive boards, scarcely comprehending the source of their 
joy, with glad hearts are now joyful, because Jesus has 
risen from the dead. All over the earth tidings of joy have 
gone forth, and as the valleys have been ringing out their 
praises on this bright Sabbath morning how many hearts 


have been singing, : 


«Our Jesus is gone up on high !” 


Why this change? What hath produced such a won- 
derful difference in public feeling? The malefactor once 
cursed, now honored; the obscure and despised, now sought 
for; the rising Redeemer, not then regarded by men, now 
_ universally worshipped. What is the cause of this great 
change ?—how brought about? The subject of this morn- 
ing, taken from the associations of this day, call us to con- 
sider, as briefly as we may, the fact of the resurrection of 
Christ from the dead, and some of the consequences which 
flow to us from that resurrection. 

It is important for us to fix clearly in our mind the fact 
that this is one reason why such days are remembered in the, 
annals of the church, as well as in the annals of nations; 
for our faith rests on facts, and the mind should clearly 
embrace the facts that we may feel that we are standing on 


628 MATTHEW SIMPSON. 


firm ground. This fact of the resurrection of Christ is the 
foundation of the Christian system; for the Apostle says: 
‘And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain, ye are yet 
in your sins; then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ 
will perish.” If Christ be not risen,-we shall never see 
the fathers and the mothers who have fallen asleep in Jesus ; 
we shall never see the little ones which have gone up to be, 
as we believe, angels before the throne of God. If Christ 
be not raised, we are of all men the most miserable, because 
we are fancying future enjoyment which never can be real- 
ized ; but if Christ be raised, then shall we also rise, and them 
that sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. And that our 
minds may rest as to the fact of Christ’s resurrection, let 
us notice how God hath arranged the evidences to secure 
the knowledge of this fact clearly to man. 

The first point to which our attention is invited is the fact 
of Christ’s death. Were not this fact clearly established, it 
would be in vain to try to prove his resurrection from the 
dead. Christ might have suffered for man in some obscure 
place; he might have laid down his life as a ransom, and 
yet there would have been no legal evidence of it. God 
allowed the wrath of man to become the instrument of praising 
him, in that he suffered Christ to be taken under what was 
then the legal process—arrested first by the great council 
of the Jews, and then by the authority of the Roman governor, 
so that the matter became a matter of public record—a legal 
transaction. The highest power, both of the Jewish and Ro- 
man governments, united in this fact of his arrest, his trial, 
and his condemnation to death. Not only was this permitted, 
but the time of the occurrence was wisely arranged. It was 
at the feast of the Jews, the Passover, when all the Jews came 
up to keep the Passover. They came, not only from Egypt, 
but from all the country through which they were scattered. _ 
Jerusalem could not hold the people that came together ; 
they pitched their tents all around the city, on the hills and 


RESURRECTION OF OUR LORD, 629 


in the valleys. It was the time of full moon, when there 
was brightness all night, and they came together with safety 
and security. The multitude, then, was there to witness 
the scene, so that it might be attested by people from all 
parts of Judea, and from all countries round about Judea. 

Then, again, the form of the death was such as to be not 
a sudden one, but one of torture, passing through many 
hours. Had the execution been a very sudden one, as it 
might have been, the death would have been equally effica- 
cious, yet it would not have been witnessed by so many ; but 
as he hung those dreadful hours, from nine until three, the 
sun being darkened, what an opportunity was given to the 
people passing by to be impressed with the scene! The 
crucifixion was near the city; the crowd was there; the 
temple worship was in process; the strangers were there; 
and as one great stream passes on some festive day through 
the great thoroughfare of your city, so passed the stream 
of men, women, and children by that cross on which the 
Saviour hung. They wagged their heads and reviled as 
they passed by. The very ones whom Jesus had healed, 
whose fathers had been cured of leprosy or fever, whose 
mothers’ eyes had been opened; the ones who had been 
raised up from beds of sickness by the touch of that Saviour, 
passed by and reviled, and said: ‘‘ He saved others, himself 
he cannot save.”’ The multitude saw him as he hung suffering 
on the cross. 

Then, again, the circumstances attending his death were 
such as to invite universal attention. It was not designed 
that the death should be a private one; not merely a legal 
transaction, a matter soon over, but a protracted and ago- 
nizing spectacle—one to be seen and known by the multi- 
tude; but, in addition, that man’s attention should be drawn 
to something to be connected with that wonderful scene’ 
hence God called upon the heavens and the earth, the air 
and the graves, and the temple itself for testimony. It is 


630 MATTHEW SIMPSON. 


said that before the coronation of a Prince in olden time in 
Europe, and in some kingdoms the custom is still observed, 
there is sent forth a herald, sometimes three days in ad- 
vance, at different periods according to the custom, to issue 
a challenge to any one that dares to claim the kingdom to 
come and prove his right, and to announce that the corona- 
tion of his Prince is to take place. Methinks it was such a 
challenge God gave to all the powers of humanity and to all 
the powers of darkness. There hung suffering on the cross 
he who died for human woe, and as he hung God was about 
to crown him King of kings and Lord of lords on the 
morning of the third day. He sends forth his voice of 
challenge, and as he speaks the earth rocks to its centre ; 
that ground, shaking and convulsing, was a call to man to 
witness what was about to occur. Not only is there a voice 
of earth. Yonder the sun clothed himself in sackcloth for 
three hours, as much as to say: “There may be gloom for 
three days; the great source of light hath veiled himself, 
as in a mantle of night, for three days. As, for three 
hours, this darkness hangs, but as out of the darkness the 
light shines forth, so, at the end of the three days, shall the 
Sun of Righteousness shine out again, the great centre of 
glory, with that glory which he had with the Father from 
the foundation of the world.” It was the herald’s voice 
that passed through the heavens, and that spoke through all 
the orbs of light, ‘“‘Give attention, ye created beings, to 
what is to happen!’ But it was not alone in the earth, 
which is the great centre, nor in the heavens, which is the 
great source of light, that the tidings were proclaimed. 
Look in yonder valley. The tombs are there; the pro- 
phets have been buried there. Yon hill-side is full of the 
resting-places of the dead; generations on generations have 
been buried there; friends are walking in it, and they are 
saying, ‘‘ Yonder is a mighty judge in Israel; there is the 
tomb of a prophet.’’ ‘They were passing to and fro through 


RESURRECTION OF OUR LORD. 631 


that valley of death, when the earthquake’s tread was heard, 
and behold! the tombs were opened, the graves displayed 
the dead within, and there was a voice that seemed to call 
from the very depths of the graves, “Hear, O sons of 
men!” What feelings must have thrilled through the hearts 
of those who stood by those monuments, and bended over 
those graves, when, thrown wide open, the doors bursting 
and the rocks giving way, they saw the forms of death come 
forth, and recognised friends that once they had known. 
What was to occur? What could all this mean? Then the 
great sacrifice was offered. It was at three o’clock in the 
afternoon when Christ was to give up the ghost. Yonder the 
multitude of pious people were gathered toward the temple. 
The outer court was full; the doors and gates which led 
into the sanctuary were crowded; the lamb was before the 
altar; the priest in his vestments had taken the sacrificial 
knife; the blood was to be shed at the hour of three; the 
multitude were looking. Yonder hangs a veil; it hides that 
inner sanctuary; there are cherubim in yonder, with their 
wings spread over the mercy-seat; the shekinah once dwelt 
there; God himself in his glory was there, and the people 
are bending to look in. No one enters into that veil save 
the high priest, and he, with blood and in the midst of in- 
cense, but once a year; but it was the mercy-seat, and the 
eye of every pious Jew was directed toward that veil, think- 
ing of the greater glory which lay beyond it. As the hour 
of three came, and as the priest was taking the sacrificial 
knife from the altar and was about to slay the lamb, behold! 
an unseen hand takes hold of that veil and tears it apart 
from top to bottom, and has thrown open the mercy-seat, 
not before seen by men. ‘The cherubim are there ; the altar, 
with its covering of blood, is there; the resting-place of the 
ark is there; it is the holiest of holies. Methinks the priest 
drops the knife, the lamb goes free, for the Lamb that was 
slain from the foundation of the world is suffering for man. 


632 MATTHEW SIMPSON. 


The way to the holy of holies is open—a new and a living 
way, which man may not close, which priest alone cannot 
enter; but a way is open whereby humanity, oppressed and 
downtrodden, from all parts of the earth, may find its way to 
the mercy-seat of God. There was a call to the pious wor- 
shipper by voices which seemed to say: ‘¢ An end to all the 
sacrifices, an end to all the suffering victims, an end to all 
the sprinkled hyssop that is used in purification, for One has 
come to do the will of God on whom the burden of man had 
been laid.” 

Now here were all these calls to humanity from all parts, 
as if to announce the great transaction. While all this was 
occurring, Christ was on the cross suffering the agony of 
crucifixion. How deep that agony, we need not attempt to 
tell you; it was fearful; and yet no complaint escaped his 
lips, no murmuring was there. He bore the sins of many 
in his own flesh on the tree. He heard the multitudes revile 
him; he saw them wag their heads ; he remembered that the 
disciples had fled from him—one followed afar off, but the 
rest had gone; and yet he complained not. Friends and 
kindred had all left him, and he trod the wine-press alone. 
He drank the cup in all its bitterness, and no complaint 
escaped from him. One left him that had never forsaken 
him before. ‘“‘ The world is gone, the disciples I have fed 
and taught have all fled and passed away—all have forsaken 
me.’’ But there was no time until that moment of fearful 
darkness came, when all the load of guilt was upon him and 
for our sins he was smitten, that his spirit was crushed, and 
he called out, “* My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken 
me?” All else might go—it were little; “‘ Why hast Thou 
forsaken me?’ But it is over; the darkness is past; the 
load is borne; and I hear him say, “It is finished ;” he 
bows his head and dies. 

Now there is publicity for the transaction. It demanded 
public investigation, it received it. There was not only the 


RESURRECTION OF OUR LORD, 633 


mental agony united with the agony of crucifixion, but there 
was the voluntary giving up of his life; yet, lest there 
might be some suspicion, to all this was added the proof of 
the fact of his death. When the limbs of the others were 
broken, and he was perceived to be dead, the soldier thrust 
the spear into his side, and there came out of that side both 
water and blood. ‘There is a peculiarity in the sacred writ- 
ings. A little incident, that seems to be mentioned without 
care, becomes the strongest possible proof, not only of the 
fact of Christ’s death, but of the nature of his death. 
When that sentence was written, the human frame was not 
understood, the circulation of the blood was not understood. 
Anatomists had not then, as they have now, unveiled. the 
human system; the great science of pathology had not yet 
been clearly taught to man; and yet, in that sentence we 
have almost a world of meaning. For it is well attested now 
that where persons die from violent mental emotion, by what 
is termed a broken heart, a crushed spirit, there is always 
formed a watery secretion around the heart. It was not 
known then to the soldier who lifted up that spear and pierced 
the body; but so much of that water had secreted around 
the heart that he saw it issuing forth from the pierced side, 
unstained by blood, which showed that that great heart had 
been crushed by agony within. 

When taken from the cross he was put in the sepulchre. 
His friends had given him up, his disciples had forsaken 
him; some of them saw him die; they knew that he was 
crucified, and they abandoned him. They were returning 
to their former employments; but his enemies remembered 
he had said he would rise the third day, and they put a 
guard around him. The Roman soldiers were there; the 
king’s seal was on the stone rolled over the mouth of the 
sepulchre; they made everything secure. Here again God 
ordered that we should have abundant proof of Christ’s 
crucifixion. He was crucified on Friday, which was to them 


634 MATTHEW SIMPSON. 


the last day of the week, resting in the grave on our Satur- 
day, which is their Sabbath, and then comes the first day of 
the week, our Sabbath morning, made our Sabbath because 
of Christ’s resurrection, from the dead. There came an 
humble visitant to the tomb, Mary Magdalene; she had 
been healed of much, forgiven much, and she loved much. 
Mary, the mother of James, came also and beheld the scenes 
that occurred; but there had been strange commotions else- 
where. Heaven had been gathering around that grave. 
Angels had been watching there; they had seen the Roman 
guard; they had seen the shining spear and the polished 
shield; they had seen that Christ was held as a prisoner by 
the greatest powers on earth. Methinks I see the angelic 
host as they gathered around the throne of God and looked 
up into the face of Omnipotence, and if ever there was a 
time when there was silence in heaven for half an hour, it 
was before the morning light of the third day dawned. I 
hear them say, ‘‘ How long shall man triumph? How long 
shall human power exalt itself? How long shall the powers 
of darkness hold jubilee? Let us away and roll away the 
stone; let us away and frighten yonder Roman guard and 
drive them from the sepulchre.”” They waited until permis- 
sion was given. I see the angel coming down from the 
opening doors of glory; he hastens outside the walls of 
Jerusalem and down to the sepulchre; when they saw him 
coming the keepers shook, they became like dead men; he 
rolls away the stone and sets himself by the mouth of the 
sepulchre. Christ, girding himself with all the power of his 
divinity, rises from the grave. He leads captivity captive, 
tears the crown from the head of death, and makes light 
the darkness of the grave. Behold him as he rises just 
preparatory to his rising up to glory. Oh, what a moment 
was that! Hell was preparing for its jubilee; the powers 
of earth were preparing for a triumph; but as the grave 
yields its prey, Christ, charged with being an impostor, is 


RESURRECTION OF OUR LORD. 635 


proved to be the son of God with power; it is the power of 
his resurrection from the dead. 

There was Christ’s resurrection from the dead. He be- 
came the first fruits of them that slept. But to give the 
amplest proofs of his resurrection he lingered on earth to 
be seen of men, and to be seen in such a manner as to show 
that he was still the Saviour Christ. In my younger days 
I used often to wonder why was it that Mary Magdalene 
came first to the sepulchre, and the mother of James that 
stood there—why he should appear to them; but in later 
days I have said it was to show that he was the Saviour 
still; that the same nature was there which had made him 
stoop to the lowliest of the low—the power that enabled 
him to heal the guiltiest of the guilty; that that power, that 
compassion, were with him still. Though now raised be- 
yond death and triumphing over hell, he still had within 
him the Saviour’s heart. Methinks I see when. Peter had 
run in anxiety to tell the news, Mary remained there; she 
could not fully comprehend it; the grave was open, the nap- 
kins were there; it was said he was not there, but he was 
risen. And yet, there was a darkness upon her; she could 
not fully conceive, it seems to me, the resurrection of the 
dead. She stood wondering, when she heard a voice behind 
her which said, ‘‘ Woman, why weepest thou?’ Bathed in 
tears as she was, she turned round and saw the man stand- 
ing, and taking him to be the gardener, and supposing that 
he had taken the body and carried it away as not fit to lie 
in that tomb or be in that garden, she said: “If thou hast 
taken him away, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I 
will take him away. If he must not lie in this tomb, if he 
cannot lie in the garden, if as a malefactor he must be cast out 
from man, tell me where the body is, and I will take it away.” 
It was a proof of her affection. A voice said, ‘ Mary, 
Mary.” Oh, she recognised it, and her heart cried out: 
“ Rabboni, my Lord and my God!” and then she would 


636 MATTHEW SIMPSON. 


have thrown herself at his feet and bathed those feet again 
with her tears, but he said: “Touch me not, I am not 
ascended to my Father; go and tell the disciples and Peter 
that I am risen from the dead.” See the compassion of the 
Saviour! and then that message! ‘Tell the disciples, and 
Peter.” Why send a message to him? Because he cursed 
and swore and denied the Master. The other disciples 
might have said, if Christ is risen, he may receive and bless 
us all, but Peter is gone, hopelessly and irretrievably gone; 
he that forsook his Master and denied him, there is no hope 
for him. And yet, said Jesus, ‘‘Go and tell the disciples 
and Peter’’—poor backslidden Peter. Jesus knew his sor- 
row and anguish, and almost felt the throbbings of his 
broken heart, and he sent a message to Peter. He may be 
a disciple still—may come back and be saved through the 
boundless love of Christ. Oh, the compassion of the Son 
of God! Thank God that Peter’s Saviour is on the throne 
this morning. Not only was he seen by these, but he met 
with the disciples journeying by the way and explained the 
Scriptures to them; and as they met in the upper room he 
was there. When the doors were unopened he came in their 
midst and said, ‘‘ Peace!’ breathed on them and said, 
“Receive ye the Holy Ghost.” Thus he met with them, 
and said to Thomas, “‘ Reach hither thy fingers, and be 
not faithless but believing.” Then afterward he was 
seen by five hundred, and from the Mount of Olives, 
while the disciples were gathered around him, he was re- 
ceived up into glory. They saw him, and as he went he 
blessed them. The last vision that ever humanity had of 
the Son of God ere he ascended to heaven was that of 
spreading out his hands in blessing. Oh, my Saviour hath 
thus gone up, and he dropped from those outstretched hands 
a blessing which falls to-day like the gentle dew all over the 
earth ; it reaches heart after heart. It hath reached patri- 
archs, apostles, martyrs, fathers and mothers and little 


RESURRECTION OF OUR LORD. 637 


children, and, thank God, the heavenly dew, as from those 
outstretched hands, is coming down on our assembly this 
very morning. On this glad day blessings are dropping 
from the throne of God upon us from this risen Saviour. 
He hath ascended up on high, the gates have opened for 
him, and he hath gone to his throne in glory. 

Let us look at a few of the results that flow to us from 
these facts thus sustained of his death and resurrection from 
the dead ! 

In the first place, it establishes all Bible declarations. 
It had been predicted that he should not stay in the grave, 
and when he arose it put the seal to the Old Testament as 
the Word of God. The prophecy in him fulfilled gave 
glorious proof. that the. other parts of it should be also ful- 
filled as the word of an unchanging God. 

Again, in his resurrection we see a proof of his divine 
power. No man hath been raised from the dead by his own 
power. All died, from Adam to Moses, with the exception 
of Enoch and Elijah, who, because of their devotion and 
acknowledgment of the divine head, themselves became pro- 
phets of a coming Saviour. He rose by his own power. 
He conquered death itself, the grave, and the whole powers 
of humanity. 

Jupiter is represented by an old classic writer as saying 
to the lesser gods that if all of them combined together and 
should endeavor to throw down his throne—if all power was 
arrayed against him—he, by his own might, would be able 
to overcome them all. What was fiction with the ancients 
becomes gloriously realized in Christ. Take all the powers 
of humanity—the Jewish power, the Roman power; the 
power of learning, of art, of public opinion; take all the 
powers of earth and hell, death and the grave, and combine 
them all against the Saviour, and, without one effort, with- 
out one single apparent movement—the sleeper lies in death, 
his eyes are sealed, and, as if all unconscious, for the warn- 


638 MATTHEW SIMPSON. 


ing had not been given before—in an instant those eyes 
were opened, that frame rises, the grave yields up its prey, 
death retires conquered, and Christ demonstrates himself to 
be the ruler of the whole universe. He made the earth to 
tremble, the sun to put on sackcloth, the very air to grow 
dark, the graves to open, the dead to come forth, and pro- 
claimed himself to be the conqueror of death and hell. So 
we have proof of his being the Son of God with power. 

In that resurrection from the dead we have a pledge of 
our own resurrection. Christ has become the first fruits of 
them that slept. You know the figure of the first fruits as 
understood by the Jews. ‘Their religion was connected with 
the seasons of the year—with the harvest crops; one of 
their feasts was called the feast of the first fruits, and was 
on this wise: When the first heads of grain began to ripen 
in the field, and there was thus a pledge of harvest, they 
cut off those first ripened heads and went up to Jerusalem. 
Before that the grain was not crushed, no bread was baked 
out of it, and nothing was done to appropriate that crop to 
man’s use until first those ripened heads of grain were 
brought up to Jerusalem and presented to the Lord as a 
thank offering. He was acknowledged as Lord of the har- 
vest, and they were laid up as a kind of thank offering 
before God. They were the first fruits. Then they went 
away to the fields, and all through Judea the sickle was 
thrust in, the grain was reaped and gathered into sheaves, 
and when the harvest was secured they baked the bread for 
their children out of this first grain. They came up to the 
temple, where the first fruits had been laid, and they held a 
feast of thanksgiving, and shouted harvest home. The old 
harvest feast seems to be descended from this ancient cus- 
tom. Christ rose as the first fruits, and there is to be a 
glorious resurrection. Christ came, the first man to rise in 
this respect, by his own power, from the grave, having 
snatched the crown from death, having thrown light into the 


RESURRECTION OF OUR LORD. 639 


grave, having himself ascended up toward glory. He goes 
up in the midst of the shouts of angels; the heavens open 
before him; yonder is the altar; there is the throne, and 
around it stand the seraphim and the cherubim; and Christ 
enters the victor and sits down upon the throne, from hence- 
forth expecting until his enemies be made his footstool. 
He is the first fruits of the harvest, but the angels are to be 
sent out like the reapers, and by and by humanity is coming. 
As Christ, the first fruits, passed through the grave and 
went up to glory, so there shall come from their sleeping 
dust in Asia, in Africa, in Europe and in America, from 
every mountain top, from the depths of the sea, from deep 
ravines, and from plains outspread—Oh there shall come, in 
the time of the glorious harvest—the uprising of humanity, 
when all the nations, waking from their long sleep, shall rise 
and shall shout the harvest home! Thank God! at that 
time none shall be wanting. Oh, they come, they come, 
from the nations of the past and from the generations yet 
unborn! I see the crowd gathering there. Behold, the 
angels are waiting, and, as the hosts rise from the dead, 
they gather round the throne. Christ invites his followers 
to overcome and sit down with him on his throne, as he over- 
came and sat down with the Father on his throne. In that 
is the pledge of our resurrection from the dead. Can I not 
suffer, since Christ suffered? Can I not die, since Christ 
died? Let the grave be my resting-place, for Christ rested 
there. Is it cold? The warmth of his animation is in it. 
Is it lonely? He shall be beside me in all his spirit’s power. 
Does the load of earth above me, and beneath which I am 
placed, press upon me? Christ hath power to burst the 
tomb ; he shall burst the tomb, though deep it be, and I shall 
rise through his almighty power. Yes, let the malice of 
men be directed against me; let me be taken, if it must be, 
as a martyr, and be bound to the stake ; let the faggots be 
kindled, let the flame ascend, let my body be burned; gather 


640 MATTHEW SIMPSON. 


_ my ashes, grind my bones to powder, scatter them on the 
ocean’s surface; or carry those ashes to the top of yonder 
volcano and throw them within its consuming fire—let them 
be given to the dust—and yet I can sing: 


“God, my Redeemer, lives, 

And ever from the skies 
Looks down and watches all my dust, 

Till he shall bid it rise.” 


Thank God! it may be scattered on the wings of the wind— 
Christ is everywhere present ; he has marked every particle, 
and it shall rise again by his own almighty power. And 
what is it to sleep awhile, if I am Christ’s? To die, if I am 
like Christ in dying? and be buried, if I am like Christ in 
being buried? I trust I shall be like him when he comes 
forth in his glory. I shall be like him, for the Apostle says, 
We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is; we shall 
be changed from glory into glory, into the same image as by 
the Spirit of God. It would be a great change to be changed 
from glory to glory, from saints to angels, from angels to 
cherubim, from cherubim to seraphim, from glory to glory; 
but, thank God! we shall not stop being changed; for the 
change shall go on from glory to glory until we shall be 
transformed into the likeness of the Son of God, brighter 
than angels ever shone, more glorious than were ever cheru- 
bim. We shall be near the throne; we shall sit beside him, 
for he hath made room for us there. Then if we can calmly 
look at death and face him, because his strength has been 
overcome, it reconciles us to parting a little while with 
friends. A father or a mother may be taken from us, but 
we shall see them again; they shall not sleep for ever. 
The little ones that drop from our arms, we can almost see 
them this morning; some of us can almost feel them in our 
arms—can see the glance of that beautiful eye, and hear 
the sound of that little prattling lip; they seem to be with 


RESURRECTION OF OUR LORD. — 641 


us now, as a little while ago they dropped from out of our 
arms. We followed them to the grave, and we left them 
there, where the winter’s storm has been howling around 
them. Sometimes loneliness like that terrible storm has 
swept over our hearts and left them almost in despair; but 
through Christ’s resurrection.we see our children yonder in 
glory, safe in the Saviour’s arms. Their little forms shall 
rise all-glorious from the tomb in the morning of the resur- 
rection; we shall find them, for Jesus is the resurrection 
and the life. All this comes to us from the resurrection of 
Christ from the dead. He died once; he dies no more; the 
condemnation of death is for ever gone; he sits on the 
throne of everlasting dominion; his kingdom is an eternal 
kingdom; and as he died once and has risen to die no more, 
so when we have died once and gone to the grave, and 
entered the dark valley and shadow of death, and we come 
up safely on the other side, thank God! death is passed for 
ever; we shall then put our feet on the neck of the monster, 
and shall be able to say: } 


“Oh death, where is thy sting? 
Oh grave, where is thy victory ?” 


Looking at the resurrection of Christ we exclaim, Thanks 
be unto God, who hath given us the victory! Such is the 
eternity of glory and blessedness that awaits us. Thank 
God for a spiritual body! Here some of us long to triumph 
over nature. We would grasp, if we could, angelic wisdom ; 
but our brows will ache with pain, our frames decay, our 
eyes grow dim, our hearing fail. This flesh of ours will not 
stand hours of painful study and seasons of protracted 
labor; but, thank God! when the body that now oppresses us 
is laid in the grave, a spiritual body will be given to us, pure, 
ethereal, and holy. Oh, what an extent of knowledge shall 
flash upon us! what light and glory! what spirituality and 


power! ‘Then we shall not need to ask an angel anything. 
21 - 2s 


642 . MATTHEW SIMPSON. 


We shall know as we are known. Jesus will be our teacher; 
the Everlasting God, the Man whose name is Wonderful, the 
Counsellor, the Prince of Peace. He himself shall be our 
Leader. We shall know then as also we are known. 

Then rejoice in God. Dry up those tears. Cast away 
that downcast look. Child of the dust, you are an heir of 
glory. ‘There is a crown all burnished for you; there is a 
mansion all ready for you; there is a white robe prepared 
for you; there is eternal glory for you; angels are to be 
your servants, and you are to reign with the King of kings 
for ever. But while you wait on earth, be witnesses for God; 
attest the glory of your Master; rise in the greatness of His 
strength ; bind sin captive to your chariot wheels ; go onward 
in your heavenly career, and be as pure as your ascended 
Head is pure. Be active in works of mercy; be angels of 
light, be flames of fire; go on your mission of mercy, and 
convert the world unto God before you go up higher. 
When you go, not only go forward to present yourselves, 
but may every one of you be able to say: ‘‘ Here am I, and 
those which thou hast given me.” 


aL yh le 
MESSIAH’S THRONE. 


MASON. 


[Joun Mircuett Mason, D.D., an eloquent divine and theologian 
of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, was born in New York city, in 
1770. After graduating from Columbia College, he continued his 
theological studies at Edinburgh. In his twenty third-year, he suc- 
ceeded his father in the pastorate of the Cedar Street Church. IIe 
became editor of the “Christian Magazine” in 1807, provost of Co- 
lumbia College four years later, and president of Dickinson College, 
Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in 1821. Three years later he returned to 
his native city, where he died in 1829. Among the justly celebrated 
of his sermons are: ‘‘Messiah’s Throne,” ‘‘ Gospel for the Poor,” 
“Oration on the Death of Hamilton.” The first named was preached 
before the London Missionary Society in 1802. ] 


* Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever.’’—Heb. 1.18. 


In the all-important argument which occupies this epistle, 
Paul assumes, what the believing Hebrews had already pro- 
fessed, that Jesus of Nazareth is the true Messiah. ‘To 
prepare them for the consequences of their own principle— 
a principle involving nothing less than the abolition of their 
law, the subversion of their state, the ruin of their city, the 
final extinction of their carnal hopes—he leads them to the 
doctrine of their Redeemer’s person, in order to explain 
the nature of his offices, to evince the value of his spiritual 
salvation, and to show, in both, the accomplishment of their 
economy which was now “ready to vanish away.’’ Under 
no apprehension of betraying the unwary into idolatrous 
homage, by giving to the Lord Jesus greater glory than is 
due unto his name, the apostle sets out with ascribing to 
him excellence and attributes which belong to no creature. 
Creatures of most elevated rank are introduced; but it is to 


display, by contrast, the pre-eminence of Him who is “ the 
(643) 


644. JOHN M. MASON. 


brightness of the Father’s glory, and the express image of 
his person.’”” Angels are great in might and in dignity ; but 
‘unto them hath he not put in subjection the world to come. 
Unto which of them said he, at any time, Thou art my son?” 
To which of them, ‘Sit thou at my right hand.” He saith 
they are spirits, ‘ministering spirits, sent forth to minister 
for them who shall be heirs of salvation. But unto THE Son,” 
in a style which annihilates competition and comparison— 
““unto THE SON, he saith, Thy throne, O Gon, is for ever 
and ever.”’ 

Brethren, if the majesty of Jesus is the subject which the 
Holy Ghost selected for the encouragement and consolation 
of his people, when he was shaking the earth and the heay- 
ens, and diffusing his gospel among the nations, can it be 
otherwise than suitable and precious to us on this occasion? 
Shall it not expand our views, and warm our hearts, and 
nerve our arm in our efforts to exalt his fame? Let me 
implore, then, the aid of your prayers, but far more impor- 
tunately the aids of his own Spirit, while I speak of the 
things which concern THE KING: those great things contained 
in the text—his personal glory—his sovereign rule. 

I. His PERSONAL GLORY shines forth in the name by 
which he is revealed; a name above every name: ‘“ THY 
throne, O Gop.” 

To the single eye nothing can be more evident, in the 

First place, than that the Holy Ghost here asserts the 
essential deity of our Lord Jesus Christ. Of his enemies, 
whom he will make his footstool, some have, indeed, contro- 
verted this position, and endeavored to blot out the text 
from the catalogue of his witnesses. Instead of “‘ thy throne, 
O God,” they would compel us, by a perversion of phrase- 
ology, of figure, and of sense, to read, ‘‘ God is thy throne ;” 
converting the great and dreadful God into a symbol of 
authority in one of his own creatures. The Scriptures, it 
seems, may utter contradictions or impiety, but the divinity 


MESSTAH’S THRONE. 645 


of the Son they shall not attest. The crown, however, 
which ‘flourishes on his head,’’ is not to be torn away, nor 
the anchor of our hope to be wrested from us, by the rude 
hand of licentious criticism. 

I cannot find, in the lively oracles, a single distinctive 
mark of deity which is not applied, without reserve or limit- 
ation, to the only begotten Son. All things whatsoever 
the Father hath, are his. Who is that mysterious Worp, 
that was “‘in the beginning with God?” Who is the “ Alpha 
and Omega, the beginning and the ending, the first and the 
last, the Almighty?’ Who is he that “knows what is in 
man,’ because he searches the deep and dark recesses of 
the heart? Who is the Omnipresent, that has promised, 
‘“‘ Wherever two or three are gathered together in my name, 
there am I in the midst of them;” the light of whose coun- 
tenance is, at the same moment, the joy of heaven and the 
salvation of earth; who is encircled by the seraphim on high, 
and “walks in the midst of the golden candlesticks ;” who 
is in this assembly, in all the assemblies of his people, in 
every worshipping family, in every closet of prayer, in every 
holy heart? ‘Whose hands have stretched out the heav- 
ens, and laid the foundations of the earth?’ Who hath 
replenished them with inhabitants, and garnished them with 
beauty, having created all things that are in both, “visible 
and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or 
principalities, or powers?’ By whom do ‘all things con- 
sist?’ Who is the Governor among the nations, ‘ having 
on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING oF 
KINGS, AND Lorp oF LoRDS?’’ Whom is it the Father’s 
will that “‘ all men should honor even as they honor himself ?”’ 
Whom has he commanded his angels to worship, whom to 
obey? Before whom do the devils tremble? Who is quali- 
fied to redeem millions of sinners from the wrath to come, 
and preserve them, by his grace, to his everlasting kingdom ? 
Who raiseth the dead, “‘ having life in himself, to quicken 


646 JOHN M. MASON. 


whom he will,” so that at his voice, “all who are in their 
graves shall come forth,”’ and death and hell surrender their 
numerous and forgotten captives? Who shall weigh, in the 
balance of judgment, the destinies of angels and men, dis- 
pose of the thrones of paradise, and bestow eternal life? 
Shall I submit to the decision of reason? Shall I ask a 
response from heaven? Shall I summon the deyils from 
their chains of darkness? The response from heaven 
sounds in my ears, reason approves, and the devils confess : 
This, O Christians, is none other than the @REAT GOD our 
SAVIOUR. 

Indeed, my brethren, the doctrine of our Lord’s divinity 
is not, as a fact, more interesting to our faith, than, as a 
principle, it is essential to our hope. If he were not the 
true God, he could not be eternal life. When pressed down 
by guilt, and languishing for happiness, I look around for a 
deliverer, such as my conscience, and my heart, and the 
word of God assure me I need, insult not my agony by di- 
recting me to a creature—to a man, a mere man like myself. 
A creature—a man! My Redeemer owns my person. My 
immortal spirit is his property. When I come to die, I must 
commit it into his hands. My soul, my infinitely precious 
soul, committed to a mere man, become the property of a 
mere man! I would not thus intrust my body to the highest 
angel who burns in the temple above. It is only the Father 
of spirits that can have property in spirits, and be their 
refuge in the hour of transition from the present to the ap- 
proaching world. In short, my brethren, the divinity of 
Jesus is, in the system of grace, the sun to which all its 
parts are subordinate, and all their stations refer; which 
binds them in sacred concord, and imparts to them their 
radiance, and life, and vigor. Take from it this central 
luminary, and the glory is departed; its holy harmonies are 
broken; the elements rush to chaos: the light of salvation 
is extinguished for ever. 


Pd 


MESSIAH’S THRONE. 647 


But it is not the deity of the Son, simply considered, to 
which the text confines our attention. We are, in the , 

Second place, to contemplate it as subsisting in a personal 
union with the human nature. 

Long before this epistle was written had he “by himself 
purged our sins, and sat down at the right hand of the 
Majesty on high.” It is, therefore, as “God manifested in 
the flesh ;” as my own brother, while he is the express image 
of the Father’s person; as the Mediator of the new cove- 
nant, that he is seated on the throne. Of this throne, to 
which the pretensions of a creature were mad and blasphe- 
mous, the majesty is, indeed, maintained by his divine 
power ; but the foundation is laid in his mediatorial character. 
I need not prove to this audience, that all his gracious offices 
and all his redeeming work originated in the love and the 
election of his Father. Obedient to that will, which fully 
accorded with his own, he came down from heaven; taber- 
nacled in our clay; was a man of sorrows, and acquainted 
with griefs; submitted to the contradictions of sinners, the 
temptations of the old serpent, and the wrath of an avenging 
God. In the merit of his obedience, which threw a lustre 
round the divine law, and in the atonement of his death, by 
which ‘he offered himself a sacrifice without spot unto God,”’ 
repairing the injuries of man’s rebellion, expiating sin 
through the blood of his cross, and conciliating its pardon 
with infinite purity and unalterable truth: summarily, in his 
performing those~-conditions on which were suspended all 
God’s mercy to man and all man’s enjoyment of God—in 
these stupendous ‘‘ works of righteousness’ are we to look 
for the cause of his present glory. ‘He humbled himself, 
and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross ; 
wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him 
a name which is above every name; that at the name of 
Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things 
in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue 


648 JOHN M. MASON, ; 

should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God 
the Father.’’ Exalted thus to be a Prince and a Saviour, 
he fills heaven with his beauty, and obtains from its blest in- 
habitants the purest and most reverential praise. ‘‘ Worthy,” 
cry the mingled voices of his angels and his redeemed, 
‘“‘worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and 
riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, 
and blessing.” ‘ Worthy,” again cry his redeemed, in a 
song which belongs not to the angels, but in which, with 
holy ecstasy, we will join, “‘ worthy art thou, for thou wast 
slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood.” 

Delightful, brethren, transcendently delightful were it to 
dwell upon this theme. But we must refrain; and having 
taken a transient glance at our Redeemer’s personal glory, 
let us turn to the 

II. View which the text exhibits—the view of his sov- 
EREIGN RULE: “Thy THRONE, O God, is for ever and ever.” 

The mediatorial kingdom of Christ Jesus, directed and 
upheld by his divinity, is now the object of our contempla- 
tion. To advance Jehovah’s glory in the salvation of men, 
is the purpose of its erection. ‘Though earth is the scene, 
and human life the limit, of those great operations by which 
they are interested in its mercies and prepared for its con- 
summation, its principles, its provisions, its issues, are 
eternal. When it rises up before us in all its grandeur of 
design, collecting and conducting to the heavens of God 
millions of immortals, in comparison with the least of whom 
the destruction of the material universe were a thing of 
nought, whatever the carnal mind calls vast and magnificent 
shrinks away into nothing. 

But it is not so much the nature of Messiah’s kingdom on 
which I am to insist, as its stability, its administration, and 
the prospects which they open to the church of God. 

Messiah’s throne is not one of those airy fabrics which 


MESSIAH’S THRONE. 649 


are reared by vanity and overthrown by time: it is fixed of 
old; it is STABLE, and cannot be shaken, for, 

1. It is the fete of God. He who sitteth on it is the 
Omnipotent. Universal being is in his hand. Revolution, 
force, fear, as applied to his kingdom, are words without 
meaning. Rise up in rebellion, if thou hast courage. Asso- 
ciate with thee the whole mass of infernal power. Begin 
with the ruin of whatever is fair and good in this little globe. 
Pass hence to pluck the sun out of his place, and roll the 
volume of desolation through the starry world. What hast 
thou done unto him? It is the puny menace of a worm 
against Him whose frown is perdition. ‘He that sitteth in 
the heavens shall laugh.” 

2. With the stability which Messiah’s Godhead communi- 
cates to his throne, let us connect the stability resulting 
from his Father's covenant. 

His throne is founded not merely in strength, but in 
right. God hath laid the government upon the shoulder of 
his holy child Jesus, and set him upon mount Zion as his 
king for ever. He has promised and sworn to build up his 
throne to all generations; to make it endure as the days of 
heaven; to beat down his foes before his face, and plague 
them that hate him. ‘ But my faithfulness,’ adds he, ‘‘ and 
my mercy shall be with him, and in my name shall his horn 
be exalted. Hath he said it, and will he not doit? Hath 
he spoken it, and shall it not come to pass?” Whatever 
disappointments rebuke the visionary projects of men, or 
the more crafty schemes of Satan, “the counsel of the 
Lord, that shall stand.” The blood of sprinkling, which 
sealed all the promises made to Messiah, and binds down his 
Father’s faithfulness to their accomplishment, witnesses 
continually in the heavenly sanctuary. ‘‘ He must,” there- 
fore, “reign till he have put all his enemies under his 
feet.”” And although the dispensation of his authority shall, 
upon this event, be changed, and he shall deliver it up, in 


650 JOHN M. MASON. 


its present form, to the Father, he shall still remain, in his 
suhstantial glory, a Priest upon his throne, to be the eternal 
bond of our union, and the eternal medium of our fellowship 
with the living God. 

Seeing that the throne of our King is as immovable as it 
is exalted, let us with joy draw water out of that well of 
salvation which is opened to us in the ADMINISTRATION of 
his kingdom. Here we must consider its general characters, 
and the means by which it operates. 

The general characters which I shall illustrate are the 
following: 

I. Mystery. He is the unsearchable God, and his govern- 
ment must be like himself. acts concerning both, he has 
. graciously revealed. These we must admit upon the credit 
of his own testimony ; with these we must satisfy our wishes 
and limit our inquiry. To intrude into those things which 
he hath not seen because God has not disclosed them, 
whether they relate to his arrangements for this world or 
the next, is the arrogance of one vainly puffed up by his 
fleshly mind. There are secrets in our Lord’s procedure 
which he will not explain to us in this life, and which may 
not perhaps be explained in the life to come. We cannot 
tell how he makes evil the minister of good; how he com- 
bines physical and moral agencies of different kind and 
order, in the production of blessings. We cannot so much 
as conjecture what bearings the system of redemption, in 
every part of its process, may have upon the relations of 
the universe; nor even what may be all the connections of 
providence in the occurrences of this moment, or of the last. 
Such knowledge is too wonderful for us: it is high, we 
cannot attain it. Our Sovereign’s way is in the sea, and 
his path in the deep waters; and his footsteps are not 
known.” When, therefore, we are surrounded with dif_i- 
culty, when we cannot unriddle his conduct in particular 
dispensations, we must remember that he is God—that we 


MESSIAH’S THRONE. 651 


are to “walk by faith ;” and to trust him as implicitly when 
we are in the valley of the shadow of death, as when ‘his 
candle shines upon our heads. We must remember that it 
is not for us to be admitted into the cabinet of the King of 

kings; that creatures constituted as we are could not sus- 
tain the view of his unveiled agency ; that it would confound, 

and scatter, and annihilate our little intellects. As often, 

then, as he retires from our observation, blending goodness 
with majesty, let us lay our hands upon our mouths and 
worship. ‘This stateliness of our King can afford us no just 
ground of uneasiness. On the contrary, it contributes to 

our tranquillity ; for we know, : 

2. That if his administration is mysterious, it is also wise. 

** Great is our Lord, and of great power; his understanding 
is infinite.”” That infinite understanding watches over, and 
arranges, and directs all the affairs of his church and of the 
world. We are perplexed at every step, embarrassed by 
opposition, lost in confusion, fretted by disappointment, and 
ready to conclude, in our haste, that all things are against 
our own good and our Master’s honor. But “this is our 
infirmity ;” it is the dictate of impatience and indiscretion. 

We forget the “ years of the right hand of the Most High.” 

We are slow of heart in learning a lesson which shall soothe 
our spirits at the expense of our pride. We turn away from 
the consolation to be derived from believing that though we 

know not the connections and results of holy providence, 

our Lord Jesus knows them perfectly. With him there is 

no irregularity, no chance, no conjecture. Disposed before 
his eye in the most luminous and exquisite order, the whole 

series of events occupy the very place and crisis where they 

are’ most effectually to subserve the purposes of his love. 

Not a moment of time is wasted, nor a fragment of action 
misapplied. What he does, we do not indeed know at pre-' 
sent, but, as far as we shall be permitted to know hereafter, 

we shall see that his most inscrutable procedure was guided 


652 JOHN WM. MASON. 


by consummate wisdom; that our choice was often as foolish 
as our petulance was provoking; that the success of our 
own wishes would have been our most painful chastisement, 
would have diminished our happiness, and detracted from 
his praise. Let us study, therefore, brethren, to subject our 
ignorance to his knowledge ; instead of prescribing, to obey ; 
instead of questioning, to believe: to perform our part 
without that despondency which betrays a fear that our 
Lord may neglect his, and tacitly accuses him of a less con- 
cern than we feel for the glory of his own name. Let us 
not shrink from this duty as imposing too rigorous a condi- 
tion upon our obedience; for a 

Third character of Messiah’s administration is righteous- 
ness. ‘The sceptre of his kingdom is a right sceptre.” If 
‘“‘clouds and darkness are around about him, righteousness 
and judgment are the habitation of his throne.” In the 
times of old, his redeemed ‘‘ wandered in the wilderness in 
a solitary way; but, nevertheless, he led them forth by the 
right way, that they might go to a city of habitation.” He 
loves his church and the members of it too tenderly to lay 
upon them any burdens, or expose them to any trials, which 
are not indispensable to their good. It is right for them to 
go through fire and through water, that he may bring them 
out into a wealthy place—right to endure chastening, that 
they may be partakers of his holiness—right to have the 
sentence of death in themselves, that they may trust in the 
living God, and that his strength may be perfect in their 
weakness. It is right that he should endure with much long- 
suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction; that he 
should permit iniquity to abound, the love of many to wax 
cold, and the dangers of his church to accumulate, till the 
interposition of his arm be necessary and decisive. In the 
day of final retribution, not one mouth shall be opened to 
complain of injustice. It will be seen that the Judge of all 
the earth has done right; that the works of his hands have 


MESSIAH’S THRONE. 653 


been verity and judgment, and done, every one of them, in 
truth and uprightness. Let us then think not only respect- 
fully but reverently of his dispensations, repress the voice 
of murmur, and rebuke the spirit of discontent; wait, in 
faith and patience, till he become his own interpreter, when 
“the heavens shall declare his righteousness, and all the 
people see his glory.”’ 

You will anticipate me in enumerating the means which 
Messiah employs in the administration of his kingdom. 

1. The Gospel, of which himself, as an all-sufficient and 
condescending Saviour, is the great and affecting theme. 
Derided by the world, it is, nevertheless, effectual to the 
salvation of them who believe. ‘‘ We preach Christ cruci- 
fied: to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks 
foolishness; but to them who are called, both Jews and 
Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.”’ 
The doctrine of the cross connected with evangelical ordi- 
nances—the ministry of reconciliation; the holy Sabbath ; 
the sacraments of his covenant: briefly, the whole system 
of instituted worship—is the rod of the Redeemer’s strength, 
by which he subdues sinners to himself, rules even in the 
midst of his enemies, exercises his glorious authority in his 
church, and exhibits a visible proof to men and angels that 
he is King in Zion. 

2. The efficient means to which the Gospel owes its suc- 
cess, and the name of Jesus its praise, is, the agency of the 
Holy Ghost. 

Christianity is the ministration of the Spirit. All real 
and sanctifying knowledge of the truth and love of God is 
from his inspiration. It was the last and best promise 
which the Saviour made to his afflicted disciples at the mo- 
ment of parting, ‘I will send the Comforter, the Spirit of 
truth ; he shall glorify me, for he shall take of mine and 
shall show it unto you.’’ It is he who convinces the world 
of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment: who infuses 


654 JOHN M. MASON. 


resistless vigor into means otherwise weak and useless. For 
the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty 
through God, God the Spirit, to the pulling down of strong- 
holds. Without his benediction, the ministry of an arch 
angel would never convert one sinner from the error of his 
way. But when he descends, with his life-giving influence 
from God out of heaven, then “foolish things of the world 
confound the wise; and weak things of the world confound 
the things which are mighty; and base things of the world 
and things which are despised, yea, and things which are 
not, bring to nought things which are.” It is this ministra- 
tion of the Spirit which renders the preaching of the Gospel 
to men dead in trespasses and sins a reasonable service. 
When I am set down in the valley of vision, and view the 
bones, very many and very dry, and am desired to try the 
effect of my own ability in recalling them to life, I will fold 
my hands and stand mute in astonishment and despair. 
But when the Lord God commands me to speak in HIs name, 
my closed lips shall be opened: when he calls upon the 
breath from the four winds to breathe upon the slain that 
they may live, I will prophesy without fear, “Oh ye dry 
bones, hear the word of the Lord;” and, obedient to his 
voice, they shall come together, bone to his bone—shall be 
covered with sinews and flesh—shall receive new life, and 
stand up upon their feet, an exceeding great army. In this 
manner, from the graves of nature, and the dry bones of 
natural men, does the Holy Spirit recruit the ‘armies of the 
living God,” and make them, collectively and individually, 
a name, and a praise, and a glory, to the Captain of their 
salvation. 

3. Among the instruments which the Lord Jesus employs 
in the administration of his government, are the resources of 
the physical and moral world. 

Supreme in heaven and in earth, “upholding all things 
by the word of his power,” the universe is his magazine of 


MESSIAH’S THRONE. 655 


means. Nothing which acts or exists, is exempted from pro- 
moting in its own place the purposes of his kingdom. Beings 
rational and irrational, animate and inanimate; the heavens 
above, and the earth below; the obedience of sanctified, and 
the disobedience of unsanctified men; all holy spirits; all 
damned spirits: in one word, every agency, every element, 
every atom, are but the ministers of his will, and concur in 
the execution of his designs. And this he will demonstrate 
to the confusion of his enemies, and the joy of his people, in 
that great and terrible day when he shall sit upon the throne 
of his glory, and dispense ultimate judgment to the quick 
and the dead. 

Upon these hills of holiness, the stability of Messiah’s 
throne, and the perfect administration of his kingdom, let 
us take our station, and survey the PROSPECTS which rise up 
before the church of God. 

When I look upon the magnificent scene, I cannot re- 
press the salutation, ‘ Hail, thou that art highly favored!” 
She has the prospect of preservation, of increase, and of 
triumph. | 

1. The prospect of preservation. 

The long existence of the Christian church would be pro- 
nounced; upon common principles of reasoning, impossible. 
She finds in every man a natural and inveterate enemy. To 
encounter and overcome the unanimous hostility of the 
world, she boasts no political stratagem, no disciplined le- 
gions, no outward coercion of any kind. Yet her expectation 
is, that she shall live for ever. ‘To mock this hope, and blot 
out her memorial from under heaven, the most furious efforts 
of fanaticism, the most ingenious arts of statesmen, the con- 
centrated strength of empires, have been frequently and per- 
severingly applied. The blood of her sons and her daughters 
has streamed like water; the smoke of the scaffold and the 
stake, where they won the crown of martyrdom in the cause | 
of Jesus, has ascended in thick volumes to the skies. The 


656 JOHN M. MASON. 


tribes of persecutors have sported over her woes, and erected 
monuments, as they imagined, of her perpetual ruin. But 
where are her tyrants, and where their empires? The 
tyrants have long since gone to their own place ; their names 
have descended upon the roll of infamy; their empires have 
passed, like shadows over the rock—they have successively 
disappeared, and left not a trace behind. 


But what became of the Church? She rose from her 


ashes fresh in beauty and in might. Celestial glory beamed 
around her; she dashed down the monumental marble of 
her foes, and they who hated her fled before her. She has 
celebrated the funeral of kings and kingdoms that plotted 
her destruction; and, with the inscriptions of their pride, 
has transmitted to posterity the record of their shame. How 
shall this phenomenon be explained? We are, at the pres- 
ent moment, witnesses of the fact; but who can unfold the 
mystery? This blessed book, the book of truth and life, has 
made our wonder to cease. THE LORD HER GOD IN THE 
MIDST OF HER IS MIGHTY. His presence is a fountain of 
health, and his protection a wall of fire. He has betrothed 
her, in eternal covenant, to himself. Her living Head, in 
whom she lives, is above, and his quickening Spirit shall 
never depart from her. Armed with divine virtue, his 
Gospel, secret, silent, unobserved, enters the hearts of men 
and sets up an everlasting kingdom. It eludes all the vigi- 
lance, and baflles all the power of the adversary. Bars and 
bolts, and dungeons are no obstacle to its approach. Bonds, 
and tortures, and death cannot extinguish its influence. Let 
no man’s heart tremble, then, because of fear. Let no man 
despair, in these days of rebuke and blasphemy, of the Chris- 
tian cause. The ark is launched, indeed, upon the floods ; 
the tempest sweeps along the deep; the billows break over 
her on every side. But Jehovah-Jesus has promised to con- 
duct her in safety to the haven of peace. She cannot be 
lost unless the Pilot perish. Why, then, do the heathen 


MESSIAH’S THRONE. 657 


rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? Hear, O Zion, | 
the word of thy God, and rejoice for the consolation. ‘No 
weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper, and every 
tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt 
condemn. ‘his is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, 
and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord.’ Mere 
preservation, however, though a most comfortable, is not the 
only hope of the church; she has 

2. The prospect of increase. 

Increase—from an effectual blessing upon the means of 
grace in places where they are already enjoyed; for thus 
saith the Lord, “I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, 
and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour my Spirit upon 
thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring; and they 
shall spring up as among the grass, as willows by the water- 
courses.” 

Increase—from the diffusion of evangelical truth through 
pagan lands. ‘For behold, the darkness shall cover the 
earth, and gross darkness the people; but the Lord shall 
arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. And 
the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the bright- 
ness of thy rising. Lift up thine eyes round about, and see: 
all they gather themselves together, they come to thee: thy 
sons shall come from far, and thy daughters shall be nursed 
at thy side. Then thou shalt see, and flow together, and 
thy heart shall fear, and be enlarged; because the abun- 
dance of the sea shall be converted unto thee, the forces of 
the Gentiles shall come unto thee.” 

Increase—from the recovery of the rejected Jews to the 
faith and privileges of God’s dear children. Blindness in 
part has happened unto Israel; they have been cut off, for 
their unbelief, from the olive-tree. Age has followed age, 
and they remain to this hour, spread over the face of the 
earth, a fearful and affecting testimony to the truth of God’s 
word. ‘They are without their sanctuary, without their ,, 

2T 


658 JOHN M. MASON. 


Messiah, without the hope of their believing ancestors. But 
it shall not be always thus. They are still ‘“ beloved for the 
fathers’ sake.” When the “fullness of the Gentiles shall 
come in,” they too shall be gathered. They shall discover, 
in our Jesus, the marks of the promised Messiah; and with 
tenderness proportioned to their former insensibility, shall 
cling to his cross. Grafted again into their own olive-tree, 
all Israel shall be saved. It was through their fall that 
salvation came unto us Gentiles. And “if the casting 
away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall 
the receiving of them be but life from the dead?” What 
ecstasy, my brethren! the Gentile and the Jew taking sweet 
counsel together, and going to the house of God in company : 
the path of the swift messenger of grace marked in every 
direction, by the fullness of the blessing of the Gospel of 
_ Christ—a nation born at once—the children of Zion ex- 
claiming, ‘‘ The place is too strait for me: give place to me, 
that I may dwell;” the knowledge of Jehovah overspread- 
ing the earth as the waters cover the sea; and all flesh 
enjoying the salvation of God. This faith ushers in a 

Third prospect of the church—the prospect of trewmph. 

Though often desolate and afflicted, tossed with tempest 
and not comforted, the Lord her God will then make her 
“an eternal excellency,” and repay her sorrows with tri- 
umph. 

Triumph—in complete victory over the enemies who 
sought her hurt. ‘The nation and kingdom,” saith the 
Lord, “that will not serve thee shall perish; yea, those 
nations shall be utterly wasted. The sons also of them that 
afflicted thee shall come bending unto thee; and all they 
that despised thee shall bow themselves down at the soles 
of thy feet; and they shall call thee, The city of the Lord, 
the Zion of the Holy One of Israel.” That great enemy of 
her purity and her peace, who shed the blood of her saints 
and her prophets, the Man of Stn, “‘ who has exalted him- 


MESSIAH’S THRONE. 659 


self above all that is called God,” shall appear, in the whole 
horror of his doom as the “son of perdition, whom the Lord 
shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy 
with the brightness of his coming.” The terrible but joyous 
event shall be announced by an angel from heaven crying 
mightily with a strong voice, “ Babylon the great is fallen, 
is fallen!” “‘ AnLELurIA,” shall be the response of the church 
universal: ‘Salvation, and glory, and honor, and power, 
unto the Lord our God; for true and righteous are his judg- 
ments; for he hath judged the great whore, which did cor- 
rupt the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the 
blood of his servants at her hand.” Then too, the accuser 
of the brethren, that old serpent which is the devil, shall 
be cast down, and bound a thousand years, that he shall 
deceive the nations no more. This will introduce the 
church’s. 

Triumph—in the prevalence of righteousness and peace 
throughout the world. 

Her people shall be all righteous. The voice of the 
blasphemer shall no longer insult her ear. Iniquity, as 
ashamed, shall stop its mouth and hide its head. All her 
officers shall be peace, and all her exactors righteousness. 
The kings of the earth, bringing their glory and honor unto 
her, shall accomplish the gracious promise: ‘‘ The moun- 
tains shall bring peace to the people, and the little hills by _ 
righteousness.’’ Her Prince, whose throne is for ever and 
ever, ‘shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke 
many people; and they shall beat their swords into plough- 
shares, and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation shall not 
lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war 
any more.” Every man shall meet, in every other man, a 
brother without dissimulation. Fear and the sword shall 
be far away: “they shall sit every man under his vine, and 
under his fig-tree, and none shall make them afraid.” For 
thus saith the Lord, “ Violence shall no more be heard in thy 


660 JOHN M. MASON. 


land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders; but thou 
shalt call thy walls Salvation, and thy gates Praise.”’ 
Triumph—in the presence of God, in the communion of 
his love, and the signal manifestation of his glory. ‘‘ Behold, 
the tabernacle of God shall be with men, and he will dwell 
with them, and they shall be his people; and God himself 
shall be with them, and be their God.”’ Then shall be seen 
the holy Jerusalem descending out of heaven from God, 
which ‘‘ shall have no need of the sun, neither of the moon, 
to shine in it: for the glory of God shall lighten it, and the 
Lamb shall be the light thereof. And the nations of them 
which are saved shall walk in the light of it; and they shall 
bring the glory and honor of the nations into it; and there 
shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither 
whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie; but they 
' which are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”’ | 
Such, according to the sure word of prophecy, will be the 
triumphs of Christianity; and to this issue all scriptural 
efforts to evangelize the heathen contribute their. share. 
That mind is profane, indeed, which repels the sentiment of 
awe; and hard is the heart which feels no bland emotion. 
But let us pause. You exult, perhaps, in the view of that 
happiness which is reserved for the human race; you long 
for its arrival, and are eager, in your place, to help on the 
gracious work. It is well. But are there no heathen 
among us? Are there none who, in the midst of their zeal 
for foreign missions, forget their own souls; nor consider 
that they themselves neglect the great salvation? Remem- 
ber, that a man may be active in measures which shall 
subserve the conversion of others, and yet perish in his own 
iniquity. That very gospel which you desire to send to the 
heathen, must. be the gospel of your salvation: it must turn 
you from darkness to light, from the power of Satan unto 
God; it must make you meet for the inheritance of the 
saints, or it shall fearfully aggravate your condemnation at 


ae —_s 


MESSIAH’S THRONE. 661 


last. You pray, “Thy kingdom come.” But is the “king- 
dom of God within you?” Is the Lord Jesus ‘‘in you the 
hope of glory?” Be not deceived. The name of Christian 
will not save you. Better had it been for you not to have 
known the way of righteousness; better to have been the 
most idolatrous pagan ; better, infinitely better, not to have 
been born, than to die strangers to the pardon of the 
Redeemer’s blood, and the sanctifying virtue of his Spirit. 
From his throne on high he calls—calls to you, ‘“‘ Look unto 
me, and be ye saved ; for I am God, and there is none else. 
Seek ye the Lord while he may be found; call ye upon him 
while he is near: let the wicked forsake his way, and the 
unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the 
Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, 
for he will abundantly pardon.” 

On the other hand, such as have fled for refuge to lay 
hold on the hope set before them, are commanded to be 
joyful in their King. He reigns, O believer, for thee. The 
stability of his throne is thy safety. ‘The administration of 
his government is for thy good; and the precious pledge is, 
that he “will perfect that which concerneth thee.” In all 
thy troubles, and in all thy joy, commit thy way unto him. 
He will guard the sacred deposit. Fear not that thou shalt 
lack any good thing. Fear not that thou shalt be forsaken. 
Fear not that thou shalt fall beneath the arm of the 
oppressor. ‘‘ He went through the fires of the pit to save 
thee; and he will stake all the glories of his crown to keep 
thee.” Sing, then, thou beloved, “Behold, God is my 
salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid; for the Lord 
Jehovah is my strength and my song; he also is become 
my salvation.” | 

And if we have “tasted that he is gracious;” if we look 
back with horror and transport upon the wretchedness and 
the wrath which we have escaped, with what anxiety shall 
we not hasten to the aid of our fellow-men, who are sitting _,, 
in ‘the region and shadow of death.” What zeal will be 


662 JOHN M. MASON. 


too ardent, what labor too persevering, what sacrifice too 
costly, if, by any means, we may tell them of Jesus, and 
the resurrection, and the life eternal? Who shall be 
daunted by difficulties, or deterred by discouragement? If 
but one pagan should be brought, savingly, by your instru- 
mentality, to the knowledge of God, and the kingdom of 
heaven, will you not have an ample recompense? Is there 
here a man who would give up all for lost because some 
favorite hope has been disappointed, or who regrets the 
worldly substance which he has expended on so divine an 
enterprise? Shame on thy coward spirit and thine avari- 
cious heart! Do the holy Scriptures, does the experience 
of ages, does the nature of things justify the expectation, 
that we shall carry war into the central regions of delusion 
and crime, without opposition, without trial? Show me a 
plan which encounters not fierce resistance from the prince 
of .darkness and his allies in the human heart, and I will 
show you a plan which never came from the inspiration of 
God. If missionary effort suffer occasional embarrassment ; 
if impressions on the heathen be less speedy, and powerful, 
and ‘extensive than fond wishes have anticipated; if par- 
ticular parts of the great system of operation be, at times, 
disconcerted ; if any of the ministers of grace fall a sacrifice 
to the violence of those whom they go to bless in the name 
of the Lord—these are events which ought to exercise our 
faith and patience, to wean us from self-sufficiency, to teach 
us where our strength lies, and where our dependence must 
be fixed; but not to enfeeble hope nor relax diligence. Let 
us not ‘despise the day of small things.”’ Let us not over- 
look, as an important matter, the very existence of that 
missionary spirit which has already awakened Christians in 
different countries from their long and dishonorable slum- 
bers, and bids fair to produce, in due season, a general move- 
ment of the church upon earth. Let us not, for one instant, 
harbor the ungracious thought, that the prayers, and tears, 
and wrestlings of those who make mention of the Lord, 


MESSIAH’S THRONE. 663 


form no link in that vast chain of events by which he “ will 
establish, and will make Jerusalem a praise in the earth.” 
That dispensation which is most repulsive to flesh and blood, 
the violent death of faithful missionaries, should animate 
Christians with new resolution. ‘Precious in the sight of 
the Lord is the death of his saints.’ The cry of martyred 
blood ascends the heavens: it enters into the ears of the 
Lord of Sabaoth. It will give him no rest till he rain down 
righteousness upon the land where it has been shed, and 
which it has sealed as a future conquest for Him who “in 
his majesty rides prosperously because of truth, and meet- 
ness, and righteousness.” 

For the world, indeed, and perhaps for the church, many 
calamities and trials are in store, before the glory of the 
Lord shall be so revealed that all flesh shall see it together. 
‘¢T will shake all nations,” is the divine. declaration—“ I 
will shake all nations, and the Desire of all nations shall 
come.” ‘The vials of wrath which are now running, and 
others which remain to be poured out, must be exhausted. 
The “supper of the great God’”’ must be prepared, and his 
‘strange work”’ have its course. Yet the missionary cause 
must ultimately succeed. It is the cause of God, and shall 
prevail. The days, O brethren, roll rapidly on, when the 
shout of the isles shall swell the thunder of the continent ; 
when the Thames and the Danube, when the Tiber and the 
Rhine, shall call upon Euphrates, the Ganges, and the Nile; 
and the loud concert shall be joined by the Hudson, the 
Mississippi, and the Amazon, singing with one heart and 
one voice, Alleluia, salvation! The Lord God omnipotent 
reigneth. 

Comfort one another with this faith, and with these words. 

Now, ‘‘ Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who 
only doth wondrous things. And blessed be his glorious 
name for ever: LET THE WHOLE EARTH BE FILLED WITH HIS 
GLORY. AMEN AND AMEN.” 


PEN UNE, 
THE GAIN OF GODLINESS. 


AMES. 


[Epwarp Raymonp Ames, D. D., L L. D., a sagacious and pure-spirited 
Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, was born at Athens, Ohio, 
in 1806. He studied at the Ohio University, and was licensed to preach 
by the Illinois Conference in his twenty-fifth year. In 1852 he was 
elected to the episcopate. For the past ten years, he has resided in 
Baltimore. His character is marked by earnestness, consistency, self- 
consecration, statesman-like breadth of view, and a vital vigor which 
gives freshness, ardor, and passionateness of feeling to his declarations 
of free salvation by the Gospel. This Sermon was preached in the 
Foundry Church, Washington, D. C., January 1869, and is reprinted 
from a phonographic report for ‘‘The Methodist.” | 


“ For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto 
all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is 
to come.”’—1 Timothy iv. 8. 


THE term ‘ godliness’ is sometimes used in a much more 
restricted sense than it is in the text. The apostle Peter, 
writing to Christians, says: ‘Add to your faith virtue, and 
to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to 
temperance patience, and to patience godliness.’ Evidently 
taken in this connection, the term applies to a particular 
Christian grace—an element in individual Christian charac- 
ter; but in the letter of which our text forms a part, it is 
used in a much broader and more extended sense. In a 
paragraph preceding the text, the apostle employs the term 
thus: ‘‘ Without controversy, great is the mystery of godli- 
ness.” .Under this term, “mystery of godliness,” he 
comprises six great facts of revealed Christianity, and the 
term godliness embraces them all. The first fact is the 
manifestation of God in the flesh, ‘‘ God was manifest in the 


flesh ; justified in the spirit.” That is, both the spirit of 
(664) 


a 


THE GAIN OF GODLINESS. 665 


prophecy and the direct testimony of the Holy Spirit bear- 
ing witness to the fact that Christ was a manifestation of 
God in the flesh. ‘Seen of angels,” for angels mjnistered 
to him, recognising him as divine, as God manifest in the 
flesh: ‘‘Preached unto the gentiles.”” Here we have the 
subject of apostolic preaching. This was the great theme 
of their ministry—that God was manifest in the flesh. 
Paul says: ‘‘ Whom we preach, warning every man and 
teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every 
man perfect in Christ Jesus.”’ ‘‘ Believed on in the world.” 
This was the primitive confession ofefaith, and is still the 
peculiar faith of Christians, that God was manifest in the 
flesh. 

When the eunuch demanded of Philip why he should not 
be baptized, the eunuch being already a proselyte of the 
Gate, one who believed in the unity of the Godhead, but 
who did not accept the ritualistic services of the Mosaic 
law, Philip said unto him: “If thou believest that Jesus 
Christ is the Son of God, thou mayest.’’ That was all that 
was necessary to make him a Trinitarian, for he believed in 
God the Father; and he said: “TI believe.” 

The Bible fixes definitely the meaning of the phrase, 
“Son of God.” On the records of a court holding such a 
trial as never has and never will be held again, when the 
prisoner at the bar was charged with blasphemy, this was 
the general charge, and the specification under it was that 
he called himself the Son of God in a peculiar sense, 
“thereby,” said the count, “making himself equal with 
God;’’ using the term ‘‘ Son of God” in such a sense as to 
claim equality with the Father. And when questioned, 
“Art thou the Son of God?’ Paul says he witnessed a 
- good confession on that occasion. I have thanked my God, 
upon my knees a thousand times for the two little words 
that fell from the Saviour’s lips, and I expect to adore and 
bless him in eternity for them. He had heard the charges 


666 EDWARD R. AMES. 


and the specification under the charges, and when interro- 
gated, “Art thou the Son of God?’ he said: “I am.” 
What said his accusers? “What need we any further 
testimony ? Ye yourselves have heard his blasphemy.”” On 
that charge he was convicted and executed; and they that 
deny his divinity take the other alternative necessarily, and 
say he died justly as a malefactor under the Jewish law, by 
the terms of which blasphemy was a capital offence. ‘‘ Be- 
lieved on in the world, and received up into glory.” The 
Incarnate Son of God is now King of kings and Lord of 
lords on high. s 

Now, this is a synopsis of revealed religion. This is not 
the testimony of the rocks which some claim to preach, 
however valuable that may be in its place; but in the pulpit 
and in the house of God, the testimony of Jesus takes pre- 
cedence of all other. With this passage before us in imme- 
diate connection with the one we have read, of course we 
can affix but one meaning to the term godliness in the text, 
of which the affirmation is that it is profitable unto all things, 
having the promise of the life that now is and of that which 
is tocome. The apostle asserts that bodily exercise profiteth 
little. Not that there is no profit or no advantage in those 
secular pursuits that pertain mainly or altogether to this 
life, which, however successful such enterprises, can profit 
except for a little time. If you ask the general at the head 
of his conquering legions where he is marching with all his 
host, he will tell you that he shall rendezvous in the grave, 
and that the laurels with which you twine his brow will 
suddenly perish. Ask the statesman who seeks to impress 
his name upon the page of history, and to leave behind him 
a good record, and he will tell you that his destination is 
the grave. Ask the man of commerce what he hopes to . 
gain by all his argosies, by his rich ventures to distant 
ports, with returned cargoes still richer, and he will tell you 
the end of all is the grave. It profiteth but for a little time. 


THE GAIN OF GODLINESS. 667 


All these things perish with the using; but we have the 
verdict of inspiration, for which we most heartily thank God, 
that there is left to man on this side of the grave one object 
of pursuit that does not perish in the grave. 

The apostle tells us in the text that this system of faith 
and morals which is inculcated in our holy books is a link 
that binds together time and eternity; that it has the 
promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come. 
The interests cherished by the Christian on earth do not 
perish with his body, when it is entombed in the grave. 
Then is the sequence to the labors of earth. An old Puritan 
divine said truly and aptly, that grace was glory in the 
body. I cannot sympathize with those Christians who 
expect such profound astonishment in reaching that better 
land. It is only a little more of the same kind—that is all; 
it differs in degree, and not in kind. He who has the king- 
dom of God formed within him on earth will not, I take it, 
be greatly astonished when he becomes a citizen of the 
kingdom of heaven; it will be only a continuance of the 
employment which has been his chief business on earth. 

It is asserted of this system of faith and morals that it is 
profitable, and that it is useful; and I know of no better 
way to commend the great interests of Christian missions to 
a sensible audience than to show them that the religion 
which they propose to propagate is a good, practical, and 
useful thing. ‘This would be proper before any audience of 
Christians in any land; but it has special emphasis when 
addressed to an audience of American Christians; for the 
temper of our community in this country, to a greater 
extent than any other, is to ask first after the utility of a 
thing. The mere abstract truth does not satisfy us so much 
as the usefulness of a thing. It is a common by-word, 
‘Will it pay?’ And before you can hope greatly to 
interest an intelligent people in prosecuting an enterprise, 
it is but right that you should show them that it is a good 


668 EDWARD R. ANES. 


thing, that it bears good fruit, and that it accomplishes a 
good purpose. 

Mark the language of the anoale He says of this that 
it is a promise. We go back two thousand years, and we 
remember that Christianity was nothing but promise then. 
It had done nothing; it had accomplished no triumphs, it 
had gathered no laurels of victory. No gorgeous temples 
sprung up upon its pathway, and no benevolent or literary 
institutions grew up under the preaching of the apostles. 
Their great mission and their only object was to plant truth 
in human intellects, and bind it upon human consciences, 
leaving it to bring forth in coming ages its appropriate 
humanitarian results. All this was high-sounding promise 
to be uttered by such a creed, for this Christianity was the 
latest form of heresy. The few who embraced it were every- 
where spoken against. No other religion made such pro- 
mises. Judaism never professed that its mission was to con- 
vert the world to its faith. There was a little circle of 
light that shined around Jewish altars, but if you went 
beyond that circle you were stumbling amidst heathen gods 
and heathen temples. The philosophers of Greece never 
anticipated or professed to believe that their creed was one 
that would be accepted by the multitude; they did not deal 
with the multitude, they ignored and despised them, but 
Plato gathered around him his select few to indoctrinate 
them with the principles of his philosophy, never intending 
that the great mass of humanity should receive the leaven. 

The same was true of all ancient philosophic sects; none 
of them ever looked out upon the vast prospect of a lost 
world: and it was singular that this man Jesus, this God- 
Man, reared amidst the toil of an humble craft, should seize 
the Godlike and magnificent plan of lifting up a lost race, 
and bringing them to a higher level, into communion with 
their God; to bring back the one that had wandered most 
widely from the path of duty, whose soul was as black with 


THE GAIN OF GODLINESS. 669 


sin as the tents of Kedar, and set him down in meekness 
and docility at the feet of the great Teacher, successfully to 
learn and practise the lessons of salvation. ‘‘ Profitable 
unto all things;’ and it is no mean evidence that our 
religion is true that it embraces in itself all these multiplied 
advantages which connect themselves with it. Many who 
have written on the evidences of Christianity have noted 
and placed special emphasis upon the value of the testimony 
arising out of those analogies which exist. between natural 
laws and moral laws, and we see a most striking analogy 
cropping out here and there all over this interesting and 
profitable. field of Christian investigation, and nowhere else 
do we see it more strongly than in the multiplied and diversi- 
fied benefits which flow from the propagation of Christianity 

a system. 

If we look into the constitution of the natural world, we 
find that God has impressed one great law upon matter— 
the law of mutual dependence, which runs through all 
material and all spiritual beings. From the minutest atom 
that floats in the sunbeam, up to the most towering arch- 
angel that bends before the throne of God, all come under 
this law of reciprocal or mutual influence. As you see the 
law of gravitation, which adapts itself to the management 
of the least atom, and puts forth a controlling energy when 
it lays its grasp upon the whole system of planetary worlds, 
so, when you look into God’s moral law, you find that it 
impresses itself upon all intellects, whether angelic or human, 
as I judge; for I imagine that all angelic beings are bound 
to love God just as you and I. I imagine that all the 
heavenly host have need of faith just as much as we have, 
for whatever appertains to the Infinite must always be 
matter of faith to the finite. They must believe in Christ 
as we do, for superior knowledge banishes many things that 
give us doubt and trouble; but, so far as the Infinite is con- 
cerned, I judge that angels and men all come under this 


670 EDWARD R. AMES. : 


great spiritual law of divine love and mutual faith in the 
great Eternal. I judge that from the analogy and philosophy 
of nature and the fitness of things; but I should not preach 
it unless I had a “thus saith the Lord” for it. The author 
of our text says in another letter of Jesus Christ, ‘* Of 
whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named.” All 
these spiritual intelligences are a part of the grand house- 
hold; they are our folks; they have passed from our depart- 
ment of the dwelling. Some of them never occupied the 
habitation that we do, but they are now in a dwelling where 
some of our friends have gone, and where all of us who 
take a part in the first resurrection shall go, and. there will 
be a union on high. ‘ Profitable unto all things, having 
the promise.” 

Now, I thank God we stand upon an clevation of two 
thousand years; we look back across the track of the 
departed ages, and we are prepared to say this morning that 
our religion is no longer of promise. It has been busy in 
achieving glorious victories for two thousand years, and 
time, that weakens other things, only adds to its strength 
and power. Although the frosts of twenty centuries have 
gathered upon its head, there are no gray hairs around the 
temples of the Church; she is still in the vigor of her. 
youth. God has invested piety with immortality on this 
side of the grave, and the Church, with augmented power,. 
goes forth from conquering to conquest, being well satisfied 
that it is not a vain thing to serve God—that, in promoting 
Christianity, we are promoting the very best interests of 
men for time and for eternity. I would not be misunder- 
stood, however, in explaining the meaning of the word profit | 
or advantage, as implying that there was a mercenary 
motive. I simply mean that God has indissolubly linked 
together man’s duties and man’s interests. 

{ utterly deny that, taken in the broadest and justest 
sense, Christianity demands any sacrifices. She pays all 


THE GAIN OF GODLINESS. 671 


expenses, and leaves a large margin of profit. We may 
count them sacrifices in our short-sightedness, but whatever 
God commands you and me to do, it is our interest to do it; 
we shall not be the losers in the long run. The books that 
are kept up there will strike the balance on the right side 
of the ledger; and when the books are opened, and you and 
I stand before our God to render an account of our steward- 
ship here on earth, that which we counted a sacrifice will 
be found then to have been a most profitable investment; 
that little portion of our worldly wealth which we say we 
gave away for the cause of God and humanity, will then be 
found the only portion that we took with us. If an old 
heathen could say on his death-bed that he had lost every- 
thing he had except what he had given away, how much 
more truly can an enlightened Christian feel that all his 
wise investments made to promote the cause of God and 
humanity is only so much placed at interest in time, the 
advantage of which will be reaped in eternity. But how? 

We sometimes take a great deal too much for granted in 
the pulpit. rs 

I doubt whether you or I, after most patient and careful 
thought, can appreciate at their full value the blessings 
which we enjoy through Christianity. We have grown up 
under its influence. Our fathers and mothers bore us to 
the house of God when we were too feeble to walk there ; 
and the fondest reminiscences of our childhood are mingled 
with the memory of scenes that occurred around God’s 
altars and sacramental tables. We have not the benefit of 
contrast. We cannot well appreciate the vast difference 
between Christianity and paganism, or any form of false 
religion. Our Saviour taught what I understand the apostle 
to teach here, when he said, right at the entrance on the 
heavenly walk: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his’ 
righteousness, and all these things shall be added.” The 
incidental benefits of Christianity are greater than the 


672 EDWARD R. AMES. 


direct benefits promised by any other, or all other, systems 
of religion. And, now that we may do justice to ourselves 
and to the lesson of the text, let us ask where Christianity 
commences the bestowment of its blessings? There are 
those who seem to think that the great mission of Jesus 
Christ on earth was to establish a close corporation, and 
that no man can get into it except through a specified 
channel—through a particular door of which they hold the 
key, and which, if they please, they can padlock. I say, 
out upon so vile a slander against Christ and Christianity ! 
I understand that our blessed Lord,.when he took part of 
our nature, made provision for the salvation of all human 
beings on the simple condition of repentance toward God 
‘and faith in Jesus Christ; and when we speak of the advan- 
tages of Christianity, we do not confine them to the Church, 
whose ministers claim, with great arrogance, to be successors 
of the apostles. Although hands may have been laid upon 
heads that contain no brains, setting apart hearts that con- 
tain less grace, we understand that Christ meant to teach 
that salvation was placed within the reach of every true 
penitent—every man and woman who honestly, before God, 
is sorry for sin, and will trust in Jesus Christ for salvation. 
I thank God that is my creed, and I take it from the 
Bible. I am glad to see an organized Church; but I am far 
from believing that the only true worshippers of Christ are 
they who worship in costly temples. There are as true 
churches in poor log-cabins as there are in the proudest 
cathedrals. How does Christ commence this great work of 
elevating and profiting mankind? He commences it in the 
heart ; not by certain outside forms and external ceremonies 
—not by putting up the scaffolding without the building: 
the kingdom of God is within us, and it is righteousness, 
peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. He begins this at the 
right time. Mohammed said that a drop of blood spilt in 
battle, or a night spent in watching on the tented plain, was 


et 


THE GAIN OF GODLINESS. 673 


of more avail in securing the joys of Paradise than months 
of prayer and fasting. His creed aimed to make soldiers ; 
his faith has been propagated at the point of the spear and 
the edge of the cimeter, and to this day, when heresy breaks 
out among Moslem, they send armed men to make short 
work of the heretics, by cutting off their heads. There is 
no morai suasion in the /foran. Now, there are just two 
agencies, and only two, that govern men—the Bible and 
the bayonet—that is, moral or physical power; and for 
myself, I declare, upon all occasions, I advocate the Bible 
instead of the bayonet; I advocate God’s method, and only - 
submit to the other where I must needs submit. 

How differently does Christ commence this great work! 
How different the teachings of our Lord from those of the 
false prophet! Christ says: ‘Suffer the little children to 
come unto me and forbid them not, for of such is the king- 
dom of heaven.” O if the Church had listened to the 
teachings of the Saviour eighteen hundred years ago, and 
understood the deep and heavenly philosophy of the lesson, 
how different would have been the attitude and perceptions 
of Christianity in 1869 from what they are! We deal too 
much with grown-up sinners; yet I thank God that, in this 
- great Protestant Republic, there are several millions of _ 
children in the Sabbath school.. I look to them with more 
confidence than I do to Congress. Whilst I do honor to the 
men who make the laws of the nation, I know right well 
that, in order to have good laws, there must be something 
behind the men that make them. There has got to be a 
power, as the sailors say, to shore them up. Christ begins 
by planting in the soil of the faithful heart the seeds of 
truth and righteousness, which grow and strengthen with 
the growth of the recipient, until, in manhood, they over- 
spread, adorn, and beautify the whole moral character. [ 
am aware that this makes no great display, and that, with 
our innate littleness, we are apt to pass it by because of its 

22 20 


674 EDWARD R. AMES. 


simplicity, as not worthy of special mention. There has — 
always been a great desire on the part of the Church to put 
Saul’s armor on David—to make the kingdom of Christ 
consist in outside adornment rather than in spiritual power 
and moral purity. 

I grant that you may take Christian duties in detail, and 
make them look contemptible. I grant that there are some 
Christians who beggar their souls, and rob themselves of all 
spiritual comfort by this process. As an old pastor, I have 
found them in the Church over which I have had to watch ; 
they were good, upright, moral men. When I have sought 
to bring them to the prayer-meeting, they had not time to 
go there, but they “loved the Church.” When I wanted a 
teacher in the Sabbath school, they could not serve me, but 
they “loved the Church.’’ When I wanted aid to plant 
Missions, they could not help me, but they hoped that 
Christianity would conquer the world. It is an easy matter 
for Christians to destroy all their vitality and religious 
power by neglecting certain religious duties. A man might 
say, ‘‘ That star is a little thing, it is a single beam of light, 
and does so little toward dispelling the darkness, we may 
safely blot it from the firmament; and yet, if you repeat 
that blotting-out process in detail, you will clothe the 
heavens in sackcloth and plunge the earth in eternal night. 
That is not a safe way to deal with moral and religious 
interests, nor, indeed, with other matters. The man who 
passes through Western valleys will occasionally find a little 
rivulet murmuring. It scatters verdure along its dewy 
course; the flowers bloom more brightly and the grass looks 
greener. But he says: “It is a little thing, and I will dry 
it up.” Let him make a circuit of the mighty basin, and ~ 
the result of this drying-up process of the little rivulets will 
be that the great Father of Waters will disappear, and no 
longer roll its mighty tribute back to the bosom of old ocean. 
It is not a safe way to deal with God and ourselves to belittle 


THE GAIN OF GODLINESS. 675 


each particular duty, and at the same time think we can be 
religious in general without attending to the details. 

Christianity begins its work, then, in the heart, and if we 
use proper diligence, it will begin its work in the heart in 
infancy. I once heard a man say that Christianity was a 
system of restraints. I pity his theology and experience. 
It went upon the supposition that, for the sake of consist- 
ency, the man having made a profession of faith in Christ, 
he would avoid open and flagrant sins; although his heart 
loved them as well as ever, yet he would be restrained from 
the commission of them. I do not so understand our re- 
ligion, brethren. J understand that the grace of Christ in 
human souls, in the language of the old Puritans, takes 
away the bent to sinning. The man does not refrain from 
drunkenness when he would like to be a drunkard, but he 
has found a more excellent way. He does not cease from 
blasphemy when he would like to blaspheme, but he has 
found a better way. He loves a different course, nor does 
he follow it by constraint, but willingly and of choice. He 
likes the assembly and association of God’s people. Re- 
ligion, as I have said, begins in the heart. It has but one 
beginning-place, whether it be with the Caucasian, Hindoo, 
or African. It is with the heart man believeth unto right- 
eousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salva- 
tion. 

But what has Christianity done for us socially? Do you 
know, my brethren, that home is a baptized word, that it 
was coined in the sanctuary, and that Christianity is the 
only system that gives to mana home? Would we accept 
the Hindoo’s home? would we call that home? No. Would 
we take the Mohammedan home, and accept it as our 
Christian home? Not at all. Would we take the home of 
the wandering Pagan, and accept that? No. Christianity 
is the only system that ever did give man a home. It is 
God that setteth the solitary in families. It is this religion 


676 EDWARD R,. AMES. 


of ours that opens by each man’s hearth-stone a fountain of 
purity and peace. It is the family altar which is the 
strength of the Church and the hope of the world. When 
religion and the Sabbath had been abolished by solemn 
decree, and human reason set up as an object of idolatry in 
France, an eloquent historian of the times said: ‘The last 
sanctuary of religion here in France was the domestic fire- 
side; the last altar on which were offered sacrifices to God 
was the family altar; the last one that ministered at that 
altar was the pious mother; and the last worshippers that 
knelt around it were her helpless offspring.” 

This language is no more eloquent than true. If you 
multiply good homes and peaceful cities and kingdoms, you 
“will make a happy world. We cannot do without this ele- 
ment in our religion; it is here that one of its greatest 
blessings comes to us; and it is the memory of these homes 
that has kept many of you men in the path of duty. When 
temptation has been tugging at your heart-strings, you could 
not find it in you to do that great wickedness, and disgrace 
the memory of your father and mother. You could not 
help remembering that you had been taught to kneel around 
the family altar, when your venerated father read lessons 
from the old family Bible that lay on the stand, and thanked 
God for the benefits that Christianity brings to the domestic 
associations and relationships of human life. It gives to 
the home a sanctity which nothing else ever gaye and 
nothing can give. Why is it, in the humblest cabin, on the 
distant frontiers, before a stranger enters, he gives the signal 
that he wants to enter? What has led to that custom among. 
all Christian customs, that, before a stranger shall dare to 
step within the lines of the family circle, some one from 
within the lines must bid him come? That is the fruit of 
our Christianity; that is what our religion does for our 
homes. It makes home a sanctified place; it makes our 
houses quiet places to us, and the stranger may not interfere 


THE GAIN OF GODLINESS. 677 


rudely and throw himself upon our family circle unless we 
give him leave to do so. You do not find that among the 
wild Indians; you do not find it in the same degree, or 
hardly in a limited degree, except where this system of 
religious belief and religious practice prevails. 

And what does Christianity do for man as a member of 
civil society? What does it do for states and nations? I 
can well afford to ask you that question. As an American 
citizen, I have whereof to glory, and so have you. Ours is 
the only nation that ever existed which owed its existence to 
the development of Christian principle. There is a paint- 
ing in the rotunda at the Capitol before which I always 
pause. I do not recollect that I ever walked heedlessly 
across that great circle without stopping to look at it, and 
as I looked, I felt my pulse beat with a more patriotic throb 
and my devotions kindled. The picture reveals upon the 
deck of a vessel a gray-haired old pastor, kneeling, with 
open Bible, and venerable men bowed around him. In the 
outer circle there are younger persons, and the young wife 
hanging upon the arm of him whom she has chosen from all 
the men on earth to be her protector, guide, and support, 
looking trustfully and confidingly into the manly face of 
her husband. I thank God that my nation traces its origin 
to such sires; I thank God that they who first laid the 
foundations of social order upon the shores of this Western 
world have left to us untouched, 


66 





what first they found, 
Freedom to worship God.” 


The memory of such men shall never perish. 


‘Their memories sparkle o’er each fountain, 
Their spirits wrap the distant mountain ; 
The meanest rill, the mightiest river, 
Rolls mingling with their fame for ever.” 


ad 


678 EDWARD R. AMES. 


I thank God for the influence that Christianity has upon 
states and nations. When old dynasties are shaking all 
through Europe, when their foundation is being heaved up 
to the light of noonday, we begin to learn on what they 
rested. What is the first element of progress? What did 
Spain do yesterday when she determined to throw off the 
shackles of an intolerable tyranny which has degraded her 
and made her the weakest of nations, who in the days of 
Charles the Fifth was the mightiest on the globe? What is 
the first element that enters into the proclamation indicative 
of a better condition of things? Religious liberty, the 
rights of conscience, fair play to human intellect and human 
souls. What did Austria do when she threw off the Papal 
concordat? Did not she begin by giving a little more 
liberty to human thought? Did not she say in subdued 
tones—and her voice will be uttered more loudly in due 
- time—“ Let human intellects have fair play?’ When’ 
Luther unchained the Bible, did not he let human intellects 
out of prison? When we took the Bible as our religion, 
when we took a “thus saith the Lord” and nothing short of 
that as binding our intellects and consciences, we declared 
that we would have the liberty which God gave us. There 
are a great many who think that we are indebted to our 
Constitution and laws for our privileges. This is not so. 
Our Constitution recognises the rights God gave us; it is 
but an echo of that divine teaching which makes a man 
directly responsible to God. I thank God that those rights 
are recognised, but I do not thank Congress for giving them 
tome. We hold them by a higher power than the Constitu- 
tion, and when necessary we appeal to that higher power: 
we ask God to prosper us when we find it necessary to invoke 
his aid in special exigencies. 

You may gauge the amount of civil liberty in any land 
by the amount of religious liberty it enjoys. Show me a 
free nation that has not an open Bible; show me a free 


THE GAIN OF GODLINESS. 679 


people to whom the Gospel is not preached in the vernacular. 
Thirty odd years ago, the Emperor of all the Russias gave 
his sanction to the Bible Society, which contemplated the 
universal diffusion of the Scriptures among his people in the 
Russian language. A journalist of our own country said: 
“One of two things will happen—either the Emperor will 
abolish that Bible Society or civil liberty will creep into 
Russia.”’ What was the result? In less than a score of 
years, his majesty issued an imperial ukase abolishing the 
Bible Society. 

It is profitable, then, to man in every department; for 
there are but three divine organizations among men—the 
Family, which is the oldest, the Church, and the State. 
These are all the organizations that have God’s express 
sanction. We have seen that this religion promotes the 
interests of each one of them; that it brings the individual 
in contact with God, purifying and exalting him; that it 
improves the family and elevates the state. Is it a little 
thing, therefore, that we plead with you to aid in propagat- 
ing this kind of religion which accomplishes all these results 
and which appeals to us in all our highest and best interests ? 
It has the promise of the life that now is and of that which 
is to come. 

Now, good as all these things are that I have mentioned, 
if it did not take in the life to come, I say to you honestly, 
-Iwould not stand before you as a minister; I would not 
wander up and down this land of ours, from Lake Superior 
to the Pacific; I would not leave my wife practically a 
widow and my children fatherless for the sake of preaching 
a religion that stopped with time. If I had nothing better 
to offer you than the advantages of pleasant homes, good 
governments, and quiet consciences; if that all ended with 
the three score years and ten, I, for one, should cease to, 
advocate this religion; but I bless God there is an hereafter 
to all this labor of planting missions, building churches, and 


680 EDWARD R,. AMES. 


organizing Sabbath schools. There will be an hereafter to 
all the work we do here this morning. I believe, as you do, 
that there is another and a better world, and that when you 
and I stand upon the verge of the grave, we shall hear 
sweet and gentle voices coming down to us, see fair hands 
waving to us, and listen to angels whispering: ‘‘ Come up 
higher.” We expect the ultimatum there... . As I look at 
history and at God’s designs, I believe this nation itself is 
the greatest missionary field which exists on earth, and I 
feel that we are doing much for Christ’s cause and his 
kingdom when we take good care to preserve law, purity, 
and Christianity among us. What can we do abroad if 
there is a failure in this respect at home? If anarchy sweep 
over the land here, if our’ Sabbaths are abolished, and our 
people grow up drunkards, what can we do in planting mis- 
sions in pagan lands? We must take care of home interests. 

Let me mention one or two facts. Do you know what 
inheritance God has given us? Three and a half millions 
of square miles of territory, over which our own flag floats. 
God never, from the beginning of time, gave any nation 
such a landed estate as this. Do you realize that just about 
one-half of all this territory has no organized State govern- 
ments—one million one hundred thousand square miles has 
no regularly organized State government? and do you 
remember that nearly one-third of the whole has come 
under our jurisdiction since 1846? Do you not see, then, 
the need that we be active, as American Christians, to take 
care of these home interests? It is not enough that we 
look after cities, though they should not be neglected, but 
we must keep abreast with the advancing march of civiliza- 
tion. ‘There are some here who have been at those distant 
outposts, and have seen cities and towns rise like magic; — 
these must not be overlooked. 

We have church accommodations for eighteen millions of 
our people; we have spent voluntarily one hundred and 


THE GAIN OF GODLINESS. 681 


seventy-five millions to build these churches. Our own 
little Church, which is but a small part of the population, 
has dedicated more than one church a day for the last fifty 
years. But we must have money from Christian people to 
aid in this work. All this great responsibility rests upon 
Christian people and upon true patriots, for I hold him to 
have a very doubtful claim to the character of a patriot who 
has not sense.enough to see the necessity of promoting a 
liberal voluntary action in the great work of supporting the 
interests of Christ’s Church. Now, I leave this matter with 
you. We are trying to do our part. We have planted our 
missions, as I have said, all over this land, and we do not 
allow any to go before us if we can help it, for we feel that 
it is our business to be up and doing. Our army is never 
disbanded; the sun never sets upon our altars; wherever it 
is, it is shining somewhere upon Methodist meeting-houses. 
I pray God to prosper the cause of Bible Christianity. I 
should be ashamed of myself to stand here and plead the 
claims of my own Church as against others. I have no 
such narrow, sectarian notions about it. I say, God speed 
the progress of the Master’s Kingdom. I care not who 
carries the banner, if it be the banner of Christ. May God 
advance it, no matter in whose hands it may be carried. 

I never felt a greater awe resting upon my spirit in. 
addressing a congregation than I did when I rose here this 
morning, in thinking of the work before us and of the deeds 
done by us. The account will be kept by the recording 
angel, and we will meet these contributions in the judgment 
day. I leave it with you to decide; but I ask, ‘“ What 
owest thou to the Lord?’ and whatever you owe, make the 
honest effort to pay for your own sake as well as others. 





DW DAY 
CHRIST’S ADVENT TO JUDGMENT. 


TAYLOR. 


[Jeremy Taytor, D.D., whom Hannah Moore calls ‘ Shakspeare 
of the Church,’ was one of the most gifted, learned, and devout 
divines and theologians of England. At times, worthless scholastic 
conceits detract from the force and clearness of his thoughts; but his 
comprehensive glance, incisiveness of argument, wealth of fancy, 
and strong practical piety, would atone for greater derelictions. 
He was born in Cambridge,*the son of a barber, August 15th 1613. 
Entering (aius College as asizar, he graduated with honors, and 
at twenty-three became chaplain in ordinary to CharlesI. After 
the defeat of the royalists, he withdrew into Wales in 1645, and 
taught school for a livelihood. Here he became chaplain to the 
‘Earl of Carbery, to whom he dedicated his ‘“‘ Course of Sermons for 
all the Sundays in the year,’”’ published in 1651. His celebrated 
“Holy Living,” ‘‘ Holy Dying,” and “ Life of Christ,” appeared 
about the same time. In 1660 Charles II. appointed him Bishop 
of Down and Connor, in Ireland. He died August 13th 1667, the 
author of many works. From the second and revised edition of his: 
Sermons, the following is selected. It is the second of a series of 
three, the first of which treats of the universality of the Judgment, 
and the third of the sentence of condemnation or justification await- 
ing each mortal. His frequent Greek and Latin quotations are omitted. | 


* For we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every 
one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath 
done, whether it be good or bad.’’—2 Cor. v. 10. 


1. Ir we consider the person of the Judge, we first per- 
ceive that ‘he is interested in the injury of the crimes he is 
to sentence: ‘They shall look on him whom they have 
pierced.” It was for thy sins that the Judge did suffer such 
unspeakable pains as were enough to reconcile all the world 
to God; the sum and spirit of which pains could not be bet- 


ter understood than by the consequence of his own words, 
(682) 


CHRIST’S ADVENT TO JUDGMENT. 683 


“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ meaning, 
that he felt such horrible, pure, unmingled sorrows, that, 
although his human nature was personally united to the 
Godhead, yet at that instant he felt no comfortable emana- 
tions by sensible perception from the Divinity, but he was 
so drenched in sorrow that the Godhead seemed to have 
forsaken him. Beyond this, nothing can be added: but 
then, that thou hast for thy own particular made all this in 
vain and ineffective, that Christ thy Lord and Judge should 
be tormented for nothing, that thou wouldst not accept 
felicity and pardon when he purchased them at so dear a 
price, must needs be an infinite condemnation to such per- 
sons. How shalt thou look upon him that fainted and died 
for love of thee, and thou didst scorn his miraculous mer- 
cies? How shall we dare to behold that holy face that 
brought salvation to us, and we turned away and fell in love 
with death, and kissed deformity and sins? and yet in the 
beholding that face consists much of the glories of eternity. 
All the pains and passions, the sorrows and the groans, the 
humility and poverty, the labors and the watchings, the 
prayers and the sermons, the miracles and the prophecies, 
the whip and the nails, the death and the burial, the shame 
and the smart, the cross and the grave of Jesus, shall be 
laid upon thy score, if thou hast refused the mercies and 

_ design of all their holy ends and purposes. And if we 
remember what a calamity that was which broke the Jewish 
nation in pieces, when Christ came to judge them for their 
murdering him who was their King and the Prince of life, 
and consider that this was but a dark image of the terrors 
of the day of judgment, we may then apprehend that there 
is some strange unspeakable evil that attends them that are 
guilty of this death, and of so much evil to their Lord. 
Now it is certain if thou wilt not be saved by his death, you 
are guilty of his death; if thou wilt not suffer him to save 
thee, thou art guilty of destroying him; and then let it be 


684 JEREMY TAYLOR. 


considered what is to be expected from that Judge before 
whom you stand as his murderer and betrayer. But this is 
but half of this consideration. 

2. Christ may be crucified again, and upon a new account 
put to an open shame. For after that Christ had done all 
this by the direct actions of his priestly office, of sacrificing 
himself for us, he hath also done very many things for us 
which are also the fruits of his first love and prosecutions 
of our redemption. I will not instance in the strange arts 
of mercy that our Lord uses to bring us to live holy lives; 
but I consider, that things are so ordered, and so ‘great a 
value set upon our souls since they are the images of God, 
and redeemed by the blood of the Holy Lamb, that the sal- 
vation of our souls is reckoned as a part of Christ’s reward, 
a part of the glorification of his humanity. Every sinner 
that repents causes joy to Christ, and the joy is so great 
that it runs over and wets the fair brows and beauteous locks 
of cherubims and seraphims, and all the angels have a part 
of that banquet; then it is that our blessed Lord feels the 
fruits of his holy death, the acceptation of his holy sacrifice, 
the graciousness of his person, the return of his prayers. 
For all that Christ did or suffered, and all that he now does 
as a priest in heaven, is to glorify his Father by bringing 
souls to God. For this it was that he was born and died, 
that he descended from heaven to earth, from life to death, 
from the cross to the grave; this was the purpose of his 
resurrection and ascension, of the end and design of all the 
miracles and graces of God manifested to all the world by 
him; and now what man is so vile, such a malicious fool, 
that will refuse to bring joy to his Lord by doing himself 
the greatest good in the world? They who refuse to do 
this, are said to crucify the Lord of Life again, and put 
him to an open shame—that is, they, as much as in them 
lies, bring Christ from his glorious joys to the labors of his 
life and the shame of his death; they advance his enemies, 


CHRIST’S ADVENT TO JUDGMENT. 685 


and refuse to advance the kingdom of their Lord; they put 
themselves in that state in which they were when Christ 
came to die for them; and now that he is in a state that 
he may rejoice over them (for he hath done all his share 
towards it), every wicked man takes his head from the bless- 
ing, and rather chooses that the devil should rejoice in his 
destruction, than that his Lord should triumph in his felicity. 
And now upon. the supposition of these premises, we may 
imagine that it will be an infinite amazement to meet that 
Lord to be our Judge whose person we have murdered, 
whose honor we have disparaged, whose purposes we have 
destroyed, whose joys we have lessened, whose passion we 
have made ineffectual, and whose love we have trampled 
under our profane and impious feet. 

3. But there is yet a third part of this consideration. 
As it will be inquired at the day of judgment concerning 
the dishonors to the person of Christ, so also concerning the 
profession and institution of Christ, and concerning his poor 
members; for by these also we make sad reflections upon 
our Lord. Every man that lives wickedly disgraces the 
religion and institution of Jesus, he discourages strangers 
from entering into it, he weakens the hands of them that are 
in already, and makes that the adversaries speak reproach- 
fully of the name of Christ; but although it is certain our | 
Lord and Judge will deeply resent all these things, yet there 
is one thing which he takes more tenderly, and that is, the 
uncharitableness of men towards his poor. It shall then be 
upbraided to them by the Judge, that himself was hungry 
and they refused to give meat to him that gave them his 
body and heart-blood to feed them and quench their thirst ; 
that they denied a robe to cover his nakedness, and yet he 
would have clothed their souls with the robe of his righteous- 
ness, lest their souls should be found naked on the day of the 
Lord’s visitation ; and all this unkindness is nothing but that 
evil men were uncharitable to their brethren, they would 


686 JEREMY TAYLOR. 


not feed the hungry, nor give drink to the thirsty, nor 
clothe the naked, nor relieve their brothers’ needs, nor for- 
give their follies, nor cover their shame, nor turn their eyes 
from delighting in their affronts and evil accidents; this is 
it which our Lord will take so tenderly, that his brethren for 
whom he died, who sucked the paps of his mother, that fed 
on his body and are nourished with his blood, whom he hath 
lodged in his heart and entertains in his bosom, the partners 
of his spirit and co-heirs of his inheritance, that these should 
be denied relief and suffered to go away ashamed, and un- 
pitied; this our Blessed Lord will take so ill, that all those 
who are guilty of this unkindness, have no reason to expect 
the favor of the Court. 

4. To this if we add the almightiness of the Judge, his 
infinite wisdom and knowledge of all causes, and all persons, 
and all circumstances, that he is infinitely just, inflexibly | 
angry, and impartial in his sentence, there can be nothing 
added either to the greatness or the requisites of a terrible 
and an Almighty Judge. For who can resist him who is 
almighty? Who can evade his scrutiny that knows all 
things? Who can hope for pity of him that is inflexible ? 
Who can think to be exempted when the Judge is righteous 
and impartial? But in all these annexes of the Great 
Judge, that which I shall now remark, is that indeed which 
hath terror in it, and that is, the severity of our Lord. For 
then is the day of vengeance and recompenses, and no 
mercy at all shall be showed, but to them that are the sons 
of mercy; for the other, their portion is such as can be 
expected from these premises. 

1. If we remember the instances of God’s severity in this 
life, in the days of mercy and repentence, in those days when 
judgment waits upon mercy, and receives laws by the rules 
and measures of pardon, and that for all the rare streams 
of loving-kindness issuing out of paradise and refreshing all 
our fields with a moisture more fruitful than the floods of 


CHRIST’S ADVENT. .TO JUDGMENT. 687 


Nilus, sti there are mingled some storms and violences, 
some ‘fearful instances of the divine justice, we may more 
readily expect it will be worse, infinitely worse, at that day, 
when Judgment shall ride in triumph, and Mercy shall be 
the accuser of the wicked. But so we read, and are com- 
manded to remember, because they are written for our 
example, that God destroyed at once five cities of the plain, 
and all the country, and Sodom and her sisters are set forth 
for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. 
Fearful it was when God destroyed at once twenty-three 
thousand for fornication, and an exterminating angel in one 
night killed one hundred and eighty-five thousand of the 
Assyrians, and the first-born of all the families of Egypt, 
and for the sin of David in numbering the people, three- 
seore and ten thousand of the people died, and God sent ten 
tribes into captivity and eternal oblivion and indistinction 
from a common people for their idolatry. Did not God 
strike Korah and his company with fire from heaven? and 
the earth opened and swallowed up the congregation of 
Abiram? And is not evil come upon all the world for 
one sin of Adam? Did not the anger of God break the 
nation of the Jews all in pieces with judgments so great, 
that no nation ever suffered the like, because none ever 
sinned so? And at once it was done, that God in anger 
destroyed all the world, and eight persons only escaped the 
angry baptism of water, and yet this world is the time of 
mercy; God hath opened here his magazines, and sent his 
Holy Son as the great channel and fountain of it, too: here 
he delights in mercy, and in judgment loves to-remember it, 
and it triumphs over all his works, and God contrives instru- 
ments and accidents, chances and designs, occasions and 
opportunities for mercy. If, therefore, now the anger of 
God makes such terrible eruptions upon the wicked people | 
that delight in sin, how great may we suppose that anger to 
be, how severe that judgment, how terrible that vengeance, 


688 JEREMY TAYLOR. 


how intolerable those inflictions which God reserves for the 
full effusion of indignation on the great day of vengeance ! 
2. We may also guess at it by this: if God upon all 
single instances, and in the midst of our sins, before they 
are come to the full, and sometimes in the beginning of an 
evil habit, be so fierce in his anger, what can we imagine it 
to be in that day when the wicked are to drink the dregs 
of that horrid potion, and count over all the particulars 
of their whole treasure of wrath? ‘This is the day of 
wrath, and God shall reveal, or bring forth, his righteous 
judgments.” The expression is taken from Deut. xxxii. 84: 
“‘Ts not this laid up in store with me, and sealed up among 
my treasures? I will restore it in the day of vengeance, 
‘for the Lord shall judge his people, and repent himself for 
his servants.” or so did the Lybian lion that was brought 
up under discipline, and taught to endure blows, and eat the 
meat of order and regular provision, and to suffer gentle 
usages and the familiarities of societies; but once he brake 
out into his own wildness, and killed two Roman boys; but 
those that forage in the Lybian mountains tread down and 
devour all that they meet or master; and when they have 
fasted two days, lay up an anger great as is their appetite, 
and bring certain death to all that can be overcome. God 
is pleased to compare- himself to a lion; and though 
in this life he hath confined himself with promises and 
gracious emanations of an infinite goodness, and limits him- 
self by conditions and covenants, and suffers himself to be 
overcome by prayers, and himself hath invented ways. of 
atonement and expiation; yet when he is provoked by 
our unhandsome and unworthy actions, he makes sudden 
breaches, and tears some of us in pieces, and of others he 
breaks their bones or affrights their hopes and secular 
gayeties, and fills their house with mourning and cypress, 
and groans and death. But when this Lion of the tribe of 
Judah shall appear upon his ‘own mountain, the mountain 


CHRIST’S ADVENT TO JUDGMENT. 689 


of the Lord, in his natural dress of majesty, and that Jus- 
tice shall have her chain and golden fetters taken off, then 
Justice shall strike, and Mercy shall not hold her hands; 
‘she shall strike sore strokes, and Pity shall not break the 
blow; and God shall account with us by minutes, and for 
words, and for thoughts, and then he shall be severe to mark 
what is done amiss; and that Justice may reign entirely, 
God shall open the wicked man’s treasure, and tell the sums, 
and weigh grains and scruples. Said Philo upon the place 
of Deuteronomy before quoted: As there are treasures of 
good things, and God has crowns and sceptres in store for 
his saints and servants, and coronets for martyrs, and rosa- 
ries for virgins, and phials full of prayers, and bottles full 
of tears, and a register of sighs and penitential groans, so 
God hath a treasure of wrath and fury, of scourges and 
scorpions, and then shall be produced the shame of lust, and 
the malice of envy, and the groans of the oppressed, and 
the persecutions of the saints, and the cares of covetousness, 
and the troubles of ambition, and the insolencies of traitors, 
and the violences of rebels, and the rage of anger, and the 
uneasiness of impatience, and the restlessness of unlawful 
desires; and by this time the monsters and diseases will be 
numerous and intolerable, when God’s heavy hand shall 
press the sanies and the intolerableness, the obliquity and 
the unreasonableness, the amazement and the disorder, the 
smart and the sorrow, the guilt and the punishment, out 
from all our sins, and pour them into one chalice, and mingle 
them with an infinite wrath, and make the wicked drink off 
all the vengeance, and force it down their unwilling throats 
with the violence of devils and accursed spirits. 

3. We may guess at the severity of the Judge by the lesser 
strokes of that judgment which he is pleased to send upon 
sinners in this world, to make them afraid of the horrible 
pains of doomsday—I mean the torments of an unquiet con- 
science, the amazement and confusions of some sins and some 

2x 


690 JEREMY TAYLOR. 


persons.. For I have sometimes seen persons surprised in a 
base action, and taken in the circumstances of crafty theft 
and secret injustices, before their excuse was ready. They 
have changed their color, their speech hath faltered, their 
tongue stammered, their eyes did wander and fix nowhere, 
till shame made them sink imto their hollow eye-pits to 
retreat from the images and circumstances of discovery; 
their wits are lost, their reason useless, the whole order of 
their soul is discomposed, and they neither see, nor feel, nor 
think, as they used to do, but they are broken into disorder 
by a stroke of damnation and a lesser stripe of hell; but 
then if you come to observe a guilty and a base murderer, 
a condemned traitor, and see him harassed first by an evil 
conscience, and then pulled in pieces by the hangman’s 
hooks, or broken upon sorrows and the wheel, we may then 
guess (as well as we can in this life) what the pains of that 
~ day shall be to accursed souls. But those we shall consider 
afterwards in their proper scene; now only we are to esti- 
mate the severity of our Judge by the intolerableness of an 
evil conscience; if guilt will make a man despair—and despair 
will make a man mad, confounded, and dissolved in all the 
regions of his senses and more noble faculties, that he shall 
neither feel, nor hear, nor see, anything but spectres and 
illusions, devils and -frightful dreams, and hear noises, and 
shriek fearfully, and look pale and distracted, like a hope- 
less man from the horrors and confusions of a lost battle, 
upon which all his hopes did stand—then the wicked must 
at the day of judgment expect strange things and fearful, 
and such which now no. language can express, and then no 
patience can endure. Then only it can truly be said that 
he is inflexible and inexorable. No prayers then can move 
him, no groans can cause him to pity thee; therefore pity 
thyself in time, that when the Judge comes thou mayest be 
one of the sons of everlasting mercy, to whom pity belongs 
as part of thine inheritance, for all else shall without any 


CHRIST’S ADVENT TO JUDGMENT. 691 


remorse (except his own) be condemned by the horrible sen- 
tence ! 

4, That all may think themselves concerned in this con- 
sideration, let us remember that even the righteous and most 
innocent shall pass through a severe trial. Many of the 
ancients explicated this severity by the fire of conflagration, 
which say they shall purify those souls at the day of judg- 
ment, which in this life have built upon the foundation (hay 
and stubble) works of folly and false opinions, and states of 


imperfection. So St. Augustin’s doctrine was: “‘ The great’ 


fire at doomsday shall throw some into the portion of the left 
hand, and others shall be purified and represented on the 
right.’ And the same is affirmed by Origen and Lactantius ; 
and St. Hilary thus expostulates: ‘Since we are to give 
account for every idle word, shall we long for the day of 
judgment, wherein we must, every one of us, pass that un- 
wearied fire in which those grievous punishments for expiat- 
ing the soul from sins must be endured; for to such as have 
been baptized with the Holy Ghost it remaineth that they 
be consummated with the fire of judgment.” And St. Am- 
brose adds: “That if any be as Peter or as John, they are 
baptized with this fire, and he that is purged here had need 
to be purged there again. Let him also purify us, that 
every one of us being burned with that flaming sword, not 
burned up or consumed, we may enter into Paradise, and 
give thanks unto the Lord who hath brought us into a place 
of refreshment.” This opinion of theirs is, in the main of 
it, very uncertain; relying upon the sense of some obscure 
place of Scripture, is only apt to represent the great seve- 
rity of the Judge at that day, and it hath in it this only 
certainty, that even the most innocent person hath great 
need of mercy, and he that hath the greatest cause of con- 
fidence, although he runs to no rocks to hide him, yet he 
runs to the protection of the cross, and hides himself under 
the shadow of the divine mercies: and he that shall receive 


692 JEREMY TAYLOR. 


the absolution of the blessed sentence, shall also suffer the 
terrors of the day, and the fearful circumstances of Christ’s 
coming. The effect of this consideration is this: That if 
the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the wicked and 
the sinner appear? And if St. Paul, whose conscience 
accused him not, yet durst not be too confident, because he 
was not hereby justified, but might be found faulty by the 
severer judgment of his Lord, how shall we appear, with all 
our crimes and evil habits round about us? If there be need 
of much mercy to the servants and friends of the Judge, 
then his enemies shall not be able to stand upright in 
judgment. 

5. But the matter is still of more concernment. The 
Pharisees believed that they were innocent if they abstained 
from criminal actions, such as were punishable by the Judge; 
and many Christians think all is well with them if they ab- 
stain from such sins as have a name in the tables of their 
laws; but because some sins are secret and not discernible 
by man, others are public, but not punished, because they 
are frequent and perpetual, and without external mischiefs 
in some instances, and only provocations against God, men 
think that in their concernment they have no, place; and 
such are jeering, and many instances of wantonness, and 
revelling, doing petty spites, and doggedness, and churlish- 
ness, lying and pride; and beyond this, some are very like 
virtues; as too much gentleness and slackness in govern- 
ment, or too great severity and rigor of animadversions, 
bitterness in reproof of sinners, uncivil circumstances, im- 
prudent, handlings of some criminals, and zeal. Nay, there 
are some vile things, which, through the evil discoursings 
and worse manners of men, are passed into an artificial and 
false reputation, and men are accounted wits for talking 
atheistically, and valiant for being murderers, and wise for 
deceiving and circumventing our brothers; and many irregu- 
larities more, for all which we are safe enough here. But 


CHRIST’S ADVENT TO JUDGMENT. 693 


when the day of judgment comes, these shall be called to a 
severe account, for the Judge is omniscient and knows all 
things, and his tribunal takes cognisance of all causes, and 
hath a coercitive for all. ‘All things are naked and open 
to his eyes,” saith St. Paul, therefore nothing shall escape 
for being secret. And all prejudices being laid aside, it 
shall be considered concerning our evil rules and false prin- 
ciples: ‘When I shall receive the people, I shall judge 
according unto right,” (so we read); ‘‘ When we shall receive 
time, I will judge justices and judgments,” so the vulgar 
Latin reads it—that is, in the day of the Lord, when time 
is put into his hand and time shall be no more, he shall 
judge concerning those judgments which men here make of 
things below; and the fighting man shall perceive the noises 
of drunkards, and fools that cried him up for daring to kill 
his brother, to have been evil principles; and then it will be 
declared, by strange effects, that wealth is not the greatest 
fortune, and ambition was not but an ill counsellor, and to 
lie for a good cause was no piety, and to do evil for the 
glory of God was but an ill worshipping him, and that good- 
nature was not well employed when it spent itself in vicious 
company and evil compliances, and that piety was not soft- 
ness and want of courage, and that poverty ought not to 
have been contemptible, and that cause that is unsuccessful 
is not therefore evil, and what is folly here shall be wisdom 
there. Then shall men curse their evil guides and their ac 
cursed superinduced necessities and the evil guises of the 
world, and then when silence shall be found innocence, and 
eloquence in many instances condemned as criminal, when 
the poor shall reign and generals and tyrants shall lie low 
in horrible regions, when he that lost all shall find a treasure, 
and he that spoiled him shall be found naked and spoiled by 
the destroyer,—then we shall find it true that we ought here 
to have done what our Judge, our Blessed Lord, shall do 
there,:that is, take our measures of good and evil by the 


694 JEREMY TAYLOR. 


severities of the word of God, by the sermons of Christ, 
and the four Gospels, and by the Epistles of St. Paul, by 
justice and charity, by the laws of God and the laws of wise 
princes and republics, by the rules of nature and the just 
proportions of reason, by the examples of good men and the 
proverbs of wise men, by severity and the rules of discipline ; 
for then it shall be that truth shall ride in triumph, and the 
holiness of Christ’s sermons shall be manifest to all the world, 
that the word of God shall be advanced over all the discourses 
of men, and Wisdom shall be justified by all her children. 
Then shall be heard those words of an evil and tardy repent- 
ance and the just rewards of folly: ‘‘ We fools thought their 
life madness ; but behold they are justified before the throne 
of God, and we are miserable for ever.”’ Here men think it 
strange if others will not run into the same excess of riot; 
but there they will wonder how themselves should be so mad 
and infinitely unsafe by being strangely and inexcusably 
unreasonable. The sum is this: The Judge shall appear 
clothed with wisdom, and power, and justice, and knowledge, 
and an impartial Spirit, making no separations by the pro- 
portions of this world, but by the measures of God, not giv- 
ing sentence by the principles of our folly and evil customs, 
but by the severity of his own laws and measures of the 
Spirit. “God does not judge as man judges.” 

6. Now that the Judge is come thus arrayed, thus pre- 
pared, so instructed, let us next consider the circumstances 
of our appearing and his sentence; and first I consider that 
men at the day of judgment that belong not to the portion - 
of life, shall have three sorts of accusers: 1. Christ him- 
self, who is their Judge; 2. Their own conscience, whom 
they have injured and blotted with characters of death and 
foul dishonor; 8. The devil, their enemy, whom they served. | 

1. Christ shall be their accuser, not only upon the stock 
of those direct injuries (which I before reckoned) of crucify- 
ing the Lord of life, once and again, &c., but upon the titles 


CHRIST’S ADVENT TO JUDGMENT. 695 


of contempt and unworthiness, of unkindness and ingrati- 
tude; and the accusation will be nothing else but a plain 
representation of those artifices and assistances, those bonds 
and invitations, those constrainings and importunities, which 
our dear Lord used to us to make it almost impossible 
to lie in sin, and necessary to be saved. For it will, it must 
needs be, a fearful exprobration of our unworthiness, when 
the Judge himself shall bear witness against us that the wis- 
dom of God himself was strangely employed in bringing 
us safely to felicity. I shall draw a short scheme, which, 
although it must needs be infinitely short of what God hath 
done for us, yet it will be enough to shame us. God did not 
only give his Son for an example, and the Son gave himself 
for a price for us, but both gave the Holy Spirit to assist 
us in mighty graces, for the verifications of faith, and the 
entertainments of hope, and the increase and perseverance 
of charity. God gave to us a new nature, he put another 
principle into us, a third part of a perfective constitution ; 
we have the Spirit put into us, to be a part of us, as properly 
to produce actions of a holy life, as the soul of man in the 
body does produce the natural. God hath exalted human 
nature, and made it in the person of Jesus Christ, to sit 
above the highest seat of angels, and the angels are made 
ministering spirits, ever since their Lord became our brother. 
Christ hath by a miraculous sacrament given us his body to 
eat and his blood to drink, he made ways that we may become 
all one with him. He hath given us an easy religion, and 
hath established our future felicity upon natural and pleasant 
conditions, and we are to be happy hereafter if. we suffer 
God to make us happy here; and things are so ordered that 
a man must take more pains to perish than to be happy. 
God hath found out rare ways to make our prayers accept- 
able, our weak petitions, the desires of’ our imperfect souls, ° 
to prevail mightily with God, and to lay a holy violence and 
an undeniable necessity upon himself; and God will deny 


696 JEREMY TAYLOR. 


us nothing but when we ask of him to do us ill offices, to 
give us poisons and dangers, and evil nourishment, and tempt- 
ations; and he that hath given such mighty power to the 
prayers of his servants, yet will not be moved by those potent 
and mighty prayers to do any good man an evil turn, or to 
grant him one mischief—in that only God can deny us. But 
in all things else God hath made all the excellent things in 
heaven and earth to join towards holy and fortunate effects ; 
for he hath appointed an angel to present the prayers of 
saints, and Christ makes intercession for us, and the Holy 
Spirit makes intercession for us with groans unutterable, and 
all the holy men in the world pray for all and for every one, 
and God hath instructed us with scriptures, and precedents, 
and collateral and direct assistances to pray, and he en- 
couraged us with divers excellent promises, and parables, 
and examples, and teaches us what to pray, and how, and 
" gives one promise to public prayer, and another to private 
prayer, and to both the blessing of being heard. 

Add to this account that God did heap blessings upon us 
without order, infinitely, perpetually, and in all instances, 
when we needed and when we needed not. He heard us’ 
when we prayed, giving us all, and giving us more, than we 
desired. He desired that we should ask, and yet he hath 
also prevented our desires. He watched for us, and at his 
own charge sent a whole order of men whose employment is 
to minister to our souls; and if all this had not been enough, 
he had given us more also. He promised heaven to our 
obedience, a province for a dish of water, a kingdom for a 
prayer, satisfaction for desiring it, grace for receiving, and 
more grace for accepting and using the first. He invited us 
with gracious words and perfect entertainments; he threat- 
ened horrible things to us if we would not be happy; he 
hath made strange necessities for us, making our very repent- 
ance to be a conjugation of holy actions, and holy times, and 
a long succession; he hath taken away all excuses from us; 


CHRIST’S ADVENT TO JUDGMENT. 697 


he hath called us off from temptation; he bears our charges; 
he is always beforehand with us in every act of favor, and 
perpetually slow in striking, and his arrows are unfeathered ; 
and he is so long, first, in drawing his sword, and another 
long while in whetting it, and yet longer in lifting his hand 
to strike, that before the blow comes the man hath repented 
long, unless he be a fool and impudent; and then God is so 
glad of an excuse to lay his anger aside, that certainly, if 
after all this, we refuse life and glory, there is no more to 
be said; this plain story will condemn us: but the story is 
very much longer; and, as our conscience will represent all 
our sins to us, so the Judge will represent all his Father’s 
kindnesses, as Nathan did to David, when he was to make 
the justice of the divine sentence appear against him. Then 
it shall be remembered that the joys of every day’s piety 
would have been a greater pleasure every night than the 
remembrance of every night’s sin could have been in the 
morning ; that every night the trouble and labor of the day’s 
virtue would have been as much passed and turned to as very 
a nothing as the pleasure of that day’s sin, but that they 
would be infinitely distinguished by the remanent effects. 
So Musonius expressed the sense of this inducement; and 
that this argument would have grown so great by that time 
we come to die that the certain pleasures, and rare confi- 
dences, and holy hopes of a death-bed would be a strange 
felicity to the man when he remembers he did obey, if they 
were compared to the fearful expectations of a dying sinner, 
who feels by a formidable and affrighting remembrance that 
of his sins nothing remains but the gains of a miserable 
eternity. The offering ourselves to God every morning, and 
the thanksgiving to God every night, hope and fear, shame 
and desire, the honor of leaving a fair name behind us, and 
the shame of dying like a fool,—everything indeed in the 
world is made to be an argument and an inducement to us 
to invite us to come to God and be saved; and therefore 


698 JEREMY TAYLOR. 


when this, and infinitely more, shall by the Judge be exhib- 
ited in sad remembrances, there needs no other sentence; we 
shall condemn ourselves with a hasty shame, and a fearful 
confusion, to see how good God hath been to us, and how 
base we have been to ourselves. Thus Moses is said to 
accuse the Jews; and thus also he that does accuse, is said 
to condemn, as Verres was by Cicero, and Claudia by Domi- 
tius her accuser, and the world of impenitent persons by the 
men of Nineveh, and all.by Christ, their Judge. I repre- 
sent the horror of this circumstance to consist in this, besides 
the reasonableness of the judgment, and the certainty of the 
condemnation, it cannot but be an argument of an intolerable 
despair to perishing souls, when he that was our Advocate 
all our life, shall, in the day of that appearing, be our 
Accuser and our Judge, a party against us, an injured person 
in the day of his power and of his wrath, doing execution 
upon all his owr foolish and malicious enemies. 

2. Our conscience shall be our accuser. But this sig- 
nifies but these two things: First. That we shall be con- 
demned for the evils that we have done and shall then 
remember, God by his power wiping away the dust from the | 
tables of our memory, and taking off the consideration and 
the voluntary neglect and rude shufilings of our cases of con- 
science. For then we shall see things as they are, the evil 
circumstances and the crooked intentions, the adherent un- 
handsomeness and the direct crimes; for all things are laid 
up safely, and though we draw a curtain of cobweb over 
them, and few fig-leaves before our shame, yet God shall 
draw away the curtain, and forgetfulness shall be no more, 
because, with a taper in the hand of God, all the corners 
of our nastiness shall be discovered. And, secondly, it sig- 
nifies this also, that not only the justice of God shall be 
confessed by us in our own shame and condemnation, but 
the evil of the sentence shall be received into us, to melt 
our bowels and to break our heart in pieces within us, be- 


CHRIST’S ADVENT TO JUDGHENT. 699 


cause we are the authors of our own death, and our own 
inhuman hands have torn our souls in pieces. Thus far the 
horrors are great, and when evil men consider it, it is cer- 
tain they must be afraid to die. Even they that have lived 
well, have some sad considerations, and the tremblings of 
humility, and suspicion of themselves. I remember St. 
Cyprian tells of a good man who in his agony of death 
saw a phantasm of a noble and angelical shape, who, frown- 
ing and angry, said to him: “Ye cannot endure sickness, 
ye are troubled at the evils of the world, and yet you are 
loth to die and to be quit of them; what shall I do to you?” 
Although this is apt to represent every man’s condition 
more or less, yet, concerning persons of wicked lives, it hath 
in it too many sad degrees of truth; they are impatient of 
sorrow, and justly fearful of death, because they know not 
how to comfort themselves in the evil accidents of their lives; 
and their conscience is too polluted to take death for sanc- 
tuary, and to hope to have amends made to their condition 
by the sentence of the day of judgment. Evil and sad is 
their condition who cannot be contented here nor blessed 
hereafter, whose life is their misery and their conscience is 
their enemy, whose grave is their prison and death their un- 


doing, and the sentence of doomsday the beginning of an_ 


intolerable condition ! 

3., The third sort of accusers are the devils, and they will 
do it with malicious and evil purposes. The prince of the 
devils hath Diabolus for one of his chiefest appellatives. 
The accuser of the brethren he is by his professed qnalice 
and employment ; and therefore God, who delights that his 
mercy should triumph and his goodness prevail over all the 
malice of men and devils, hath appointed one whose office is 
to reprove the accuser and to resist the enemy, and to bea 
defender of their cause who belong to God. The Holy 
Spirit is a defender ; the evil spirit is the accuser; and they 
that in this life belong to one or the other, shall in the same 


= 


700 JEREMY TAYLOR. 


proportion be treated at the day of judgment. The devil 
shall accuse the brethren, that is, the saints and servants 
of God, and shall tell concerning their follies and infirmities, 
the sins of their youth and the weakness of their age, the 
imperfect grace and the long schedule of omissions of duty, 
their scruples and their fears, their diffidences and pusil- 
lanimity, and all those things which themselves by strict 
examination find themselves guilty of and have confessed, 
all their shame and the matter of their sorrows, their evil 
intentions and their little plots, their carnal confidences and 
too fond adherences to the things of this world, their indul- 
gence and easiness of government, their wilder joys and 
freer meals, their loss of time and their too forward and apt 
 compliances, their trifling arrests and little peevishnesses, 
the mixtures of the world with the things of the Spirit, 
and all the incidences of humanity he will bring forth and 
ageravate them by the circumstance of ingratitude, and the 
breach of promise, and the evacuating all their holy pur- 
poses, and breaking their resolutions, and rifling their vows, 
and all these things, being drawn into an entire represent- 
ment, and the bills clogged by numbers, will make the best 
man in the world seem foul and unhandsome, and stained 
with the characters of death and evil dishonor. But for 
these there is appointed a defender. The Holy Spirit that 
maketh intercession for us shall then also interpose, and 
against all these things shall oppose the passion of our Bless- 
ed Lord, and upon all their defects shall cast the robe of his 
righteousness ; and the sins of their youth shall not prevail 
so much as the repentance of their age, and their omissions 
be excused by probable intervening causes, and ‘their little 
escapes shall appear single and in disunion, because they 
were always kept asunder by penitential prayers and sigh- 
ings, and their seldom returns of sin by their daily watch- 
fulness, and their often infirmities by the sincerity of their 
souls, and their scruples by their zeal, and their passions by 


CHRIST’S ADVENT TO JUDGMENT. 701 


their love, and all by the mercies of God and the sacrifice 
which their Judge offered and the Holy Spirit made effective 
by daily graces and assistances. ‘These, therefore, infallibly 
go to the portion of the right hand, because the Lord our 
God shall answer for them. But as for the wicked, it is not 
so with them; for although the plain story of their life be 
to them a sad condemnation, yet what will be answered when 
it shall be told concerning them, that they despised God’s 
mercies, and feared not his angry judgments; that they 
regarded not his word, and loved not his excellencies; that 
they were not persuaded by the promises, nor affrighted by 
his threatenings; that they neither would accept his govern- 
ment nor his blessings; that all the sad stories that ever 
happened in both the worlds (in all which himself did escape 
till the day of his death, and was not concerned in them 
save only that he was called upon by every one of them, 
which he ever heard or saw or was told of, to repentance), 
that all these were sent to him in vain? But cannot the ac- 
cuser truly say to the Judge concerning such persons, ‘“‘ They 
were thine by creation, but mine by their own choice; thou 
didst redeem them indeed, but they sold themselves to me 
for a trifle, or for an unsatisfying interest; thou diedst for 
them, but they obeyed my commandments; I gave them 
nothing, I promised them nothing but the filthy pleasures 
of a night, or the joys of madness, or the delights of a 
disease ; I never hanged upon the cross three long hours for 
them, nor endured the labors of a poor life thirty-three 
years together for their interest ; only when they were thine 
by the merit of thy death, they quickly became mine by the 
demerit of their ingratitude; and when thou hadst clothed 
their soul with thy robe, and adorned them by thy graces, 
we stripped them naked as their shame, and only put on a 
robe of darkness, and they thought themselves secure and ° 
went dancing to their grave like a drunkard to a fight, or a 
fly unto a candle; and therefore they that did partake with 


702 JEREMY TAYLOR. 


us in our faults must divide with us in our portion and fear- 
ful interest.’’ This is a sad story because it ends in death, 
and there is nothing to abate or lessen the calamity. It 
concerns us therefore to consider in time that he that 
tempts us will accuse us, and what he calls pleasant now he 
shall then say was nothing, and all the gains that now invite 
earthly souls and mean persons to vanity, was nothing but 
the seeds of folly, and the harvest is pain and sorrow and 
shame eternal. But then, since this horror proceeds upon the 
account of so many accusers, God hath put it into our power 
by a timely accusation of ourselves in the tribunal of the 
court Christian, to prevent all the arts of aggravation which 
at doomsday shall load foolish and undiscerning souls. He 
that accuses himself of his crimes here, means to forsake 
them, and looks upon them on all sides, and spies out his 
deformity, and is taught to hate them, he is instructed and 
prayed for, he prevents the anger of God and defeats the 
devil’s malice, and, by making shame the instrument of 
repentance, he takes away the sting, and makes that to be 
his medicine which otherwise would be his death: and, con- 
cerning this exercise, I shall only add what the patriarch 
of Alexandria told an old religious person in his hermitage. 
Having asked him what he found in that desert, he was 
answered, ‘Only this, to judge and condemn myself per- 
petually; that is the employment of my solitude.” The 
patriarch answered, ‘There is no other way.” By accusing 
ourselves we shall make the deyil’s malice useless, and our 
own consciences dear, and be reconciled to the Judge by the 
severities of an early repentance, and then we need to fear 
no accusers. 


DALIAN? 
THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 


| HANNA, 

[Wititam Hanna, D.D., LL. D., the colleague of Dr. Guthrie in 
St. John’s Church, Edinburgh, was born at Belfast in 1808. As son- 
in-law of Dr. Chalmers, he edited the memoirs of the latter’s life and 
his posthumous writings. His own literary labors are original, 
scholarly, and choice, having a pure transparency of thought and 
chaste imaginativeness of illustration. Justly famous is ‘‘The Life 
of Christ,’ a series of sermons embodying the life-like and devout 
conceptions gained by a pilgrimage through the Holy Land. Origi- 
nally published in six books, this has been recently issued by the 
American Tract Society in one volume. An earlier work is ‘‘ Wyc- 
liffe and the Huguenots,” being sketches of the rise of the Reforma- 
tion in England, and of the early history of Protestantism in France.] 


* And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, 
Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? He saidunto him, What 
is written in the law? how readest thou? And he answering said, Thou 
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and 
with all thy strength, and with all thy mind ; and thy neighbor as thy- 
self. And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right ; this do, and 
thou shalt live. But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And 
who is my neighbor ?”’—Luke x. 25-29. 


*‘ BEHOLD, a certain lawyer stood up’—in all likelihood 
within some synagogue upon a sabbath-day. In rising to 
put a question to Jesus, he was guilty of no impertinent 
intrusion. Jesus had assumed the office of a public teacher, 
and it was by questions put and answered that this office was 
ordinarily discharged. This lawyer “‘stood up and tempted 
him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life ?”’ 
His object might have been to perplex and entangle — to 
involve Christ.in a difficulty from which he perceived or‘ 
hoped that he would be unable to extricate himself. Ques- 


tions of this kind were often put to Jesus, their very charac. 
(703) 


704 WILLIAM HANNA. 


ter and construction betraying their intent. But the question 
of the lawyer is not one of this nature. Something more 
than a mere idle curiosity, or a desire to test the extent of 
Christ’s capacity or knowledge, appears to have prompted 
it. It is not presented in the bare abstract form. It is 
not, ‘‘ Master, what should be done that eternal life be inhe- 
rited ?”” but, “Master, what should I do to inherit eternal 
life? It looks as if it came from one feeling a true, deep, 
and personal interest in the inquiry. 

The manner in which our Lord entertained it confirms 
this impression. Questions of many kinds from many quar- 
ters were addressed to Jesus. With one or two memorable 
exceptions, they were all answered, but in different ways; 
whenever any insidious and sinister purpose lay concealed 
beneath apparent homage, the answer was always such as to 
show that the latent guile lay open as day to his eye. But 
there iy nothing of that description here. In the first 
instance, indeed, he will make the questioner go as far as he 
can in answering his own question. He will tempt—. e., 
try or prove him in turn. Knowing that he is a scribe well 
instructed in the law, he will throw him back upon his own 
knowledge. Before saying anything about eternal life, or 
the manner of its inheritance, Jesus says, ‘“‘ What is written 
in the law? howreadest thou?” It is altogether remarkable 
that in answer to a question so very general as this—one 
which admitted of such various replies—this man should at 
once have laid his hand upon two texts, standing far apart 
from each other—the first occurring early in Deuteronomy, 
the second far on in Leviticus—texts having no connection 
with each other in the outer form or letter of the law, to 
which no peculiar or pre-eminent position is there assigned, 
which are nowhere brought into juxtaposition, nor are quoted 
as if, when brought together, they formed a summary or 
compound of the whole; the two very texts, in fact, which, 
on an after occasion, in answer to another scribe, our Lord 


THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 705 


himself cited as the two upon which all the law and the 
prophets hung. The man who, overlooking the whole mass 
of ceremonial or ritualistic ordinances as being of altogether 
inferior consideration, not once to be taken into account 
when the question was one as to a man’s inheriting eternal 
life, who so readily and so confidently selected these two 
commandments as containing the sum and substance of the 
whole, gave good proof how true his reading of the law was. 
“And Jesus said to him, Thou hast answered right: this 
do, and thou shalt live.” ‘Take but thine own right reading 
of the law, fulfil aright those two great precepts, Love the 
Lord thy God with all thine heart, Love thy neighbor as 
thyself, and thou shalt live; live in loving and in serving, 
or if thou reachest not in this way the life thou aimest at, 
thou wilt at least, by the very failure, be taught to look 
away from the precepts to the promises, and so be led to 
the true source and fountain of eternal life in the free grace 
of the Father through me the Son.’ 

Trying to escape from the awkward position of one out 
of whose own lips so simple and satisfactory a reply to his 
own question had been extracted—desiring to justify himself 
for still appearing as a questioner, by showing that there 
was yet something about which there remained a doubt—he 
said to Jesus, “‘ And who is my neighbor?” We may fairly 
assume that one so well read as this man was as to the true 
meaning of the law, was equally well read as to the popular 
belief and practice regarding it. He knew what interpreta- 
tion was popularly put on the expression, ‘ thy neighbor,” 
which stood embodied in the practice of his countrymen. 
He knew with what supercilious contempt they looked down 
upon the whole Gentile world around them—calling them 
the “uncircumcised,” the “ dogs,” the “ polluted,” the ‘‘ un- 
clean,”—with what a double contempt they regarded the 
Samaritans living by their side. He knew that it was no 


part of the popular belief to regard a Samaritan as a neigh- 
23 2¥ 


706 WILLIAM HANNA. 


bor. So far from this, the Jew would have no dealings with 
him, cursed him publicly in his synagogue, would not receive 
his testimony in a court of justice, prayed that he might 
have no portion in the resurrection. He knew all this— 
had himself been brought up to the belief and practice. But 
he was not satisfied with it. Along with that fine instinet 
of the understanding which had enabled him to extract the 
pure and simple essence out of the great body of the Jewish 
code, there was that finer instinct of the heart which taught 
him that it was within too narrow bounds that the love to 
our neighbor had been limited. He saw and felt that these 
bounds should be widened ; but how far ?—upon what princi- 
ple, and to what extent? Anxious to know this, he says, 
‘¢ And who is my neighbor ?” 

Christ answers by what we take to be the recital of an 
incident that had actually occurred. <A fictitious story—a 
parable invented for the occasion—would not so fully have 
answered the purpose he had in view. <A certain man went 
down from Jerusalem to Jericho. We are not told who or 
what he was; but the conditions and object of the narrative 
require that he was a Jew. The road from Jerusalem to 
Jericho—though short, and at certain seasons of the year 
much frequented—was yet lonely and perilous to the last 
degree, especially to a single and undefended traveller. It 
passes through the heart of the eastern division of the 
wilderness of Judea, and runs for a considerable space along 
the abrupt and winding sides of a deep and rocky ravine, 
offering the greatest facilities for concealment and attack. 
From the number of robberies and murders committed in it, 
Jews of old called it ‘¢ the Bloody Road,” and it retains its . 
character still. We travelled it, guarded by a dozen Arabs, 
who told, by the way, of an English party that the year 
before had been attacked and plundered and stripped, and 
we were kept in constant alarm by the scouts sent out be- 
forehand announcing the distant sight of dangerous-looking 


THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 707 


Bedouin. All the way from Bethany to the plain of the 
Jordan is utter solitude—one single ruin, perhaps that of 
the very inn to which the wounded Jew was carried, being 
the only sign of human habitation that meets the eye. 
Somewhere along this road, the solitary traveller of whom 
Jesus speaks is attacked. Perhaps he carries his all along 
with him, and, unwilling to part with it, stands upon his 
defence, wishing to sell life and property as dearly as he can. 
Perhaps he carries but little—nothing that the thievish band 
into whose hands he falls much value. Whether it is that 
a struggle has taken place, or that exasperation at disap- 
pointment whets their wrath, the robbers of the wilderness 
strip their victim of his raiment, wound him, and leave him 
there half dead. As he lies in that condition on the road- 
side, first a priest, and then a Levite approaches. A single 
glance is sufficient for the priest ; the Levite stops, and takes 
a longer, steadier look. The effect in either case is the 
same—abhorrence and aversion. As men actuated by some 
other sentiment beyond that of mere insensibility, they 
shrink back, putting as great a distance as they can between 
them and the poor naked wounded man; as if there were 
pollution in proximity—as if the very air around the man 
were infected—as if to go near him, much more to touch, to 
lift, to handle him, were to be defiled. To what are we to 
attribute this? To sheer indifference —to stony-hearted 
inhumanity? That might explain their passing without a 
feeling of sympathy excited or a hand of help held out, but 
it will not explain the quick and sensitive recoil—the passing 
by on the other side. Is it then the bare horror of the 
sight that drives them back? If there be something to ex- 
cite horror, surely there is more to move pity. That naked, 
quivering body, those gaping, bleeding wounds, the pale and 
speechless lips, the eyes so dull and heavy with pain, yet 
sending out such imploring looks—where is the human heart, 
left free to its own spontaneous actings, they could fail to 
touch ? . 


708 WILLIAM HANNA. 


But these men’s hearts—the hearts of the priest and 
Levite —are not left thus free: not that their hearts are 
destitute of the common sympathies of our nature—not that 
their breasts are steeled against every form and kind of 
human woe—not that, in other circumstances, they would 
see a wounded, half-dead neighbor lying, and leave him un- 
pitied and unhelped. No! but because their hearts —as 
tender, it may have been, by nature as those of others— 
have been trained in the school of national and religious 
bigotry, and have been taught there, not the lesson of sheer 
and downright inhumanity, but of that narrow exclusiveness 
which would limit all their sympathies and all their aid to 
those of their own country and their own faith. The priest 
and the Levite have been up at Jerusalem, discharging, in 
their turn, their officesin the Temple. They have got quick- 
ened afresh there all the prejudices of their calling; they 
are returning to Jericho, with all their prejudices strong 
within their breasts ; they see the sad sight by the way; they 
pause a moment to contemplate it. Had it been a brother 
priest, a brother Levite, a brother Jew that lay in that 
piteous plight, none readier to help than they; but he is 
naked, there is nothing on him or about him to tell who or 
what lre is—he is speechless, and can say nothing for him- 
self. He may be a hated Edomite, he may be a vile Samar- 
itan, for aught that they can tell. The possibility of this 
is enough. ‘Touch, handle, help such a man! they might be 
doing thereby a far greater outrage to their Jewish prejudices 
than they did to the mere sentiment of indiscriminate pity 
by passing him by, and so they leave him as they find him, 
in haste to get past the dangerous neighborhood, to con- 
gratulate themselves on the wonderful escape they had made 
—for the wounds of the poor wretch were fresh, and bleed- 
ing freely—it could have been but shortly before they came 
up that the catastrophe had occurred; had they started but 
an hour or two earlier from Jerusalem his fate might have 
been theirs. Glad at their own good fortune, they hurry 


nd 


THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 709 


on, finding many an excuse beside the real one for their 
neglect. : 

How then are we exactly to characterize their conduct ? 
It was a triumph of prejudice over humanity—the very kind 
of error and of crime against which Jesus wished to guard 
the inquiring lawyer. And it was at once with singular 
fidelity to nature, and the strictest pertinence to the ques- 
tion with which he was dealing, and to the occasion that 
called it forth, that it was in the conduct of a priest and of 
a Levite that this triumph stood displayed—for were they 
not the fittest types and representatives of that malign and 
sinister influence which their religion,—misunderstood and 
misapplied,—had exerted over the common sympathies of 
humanity? Had they read aright their own old Hebrew 
code, it would have taught them quite a different lesson. Its 
broad and genial humanity is one of the marked attributes 
by which, as compared with that of every other religion 
then existing, theirs was distinguished. ‘I will have mercy 
-and not sacrifice,’ was the motto which its great Author 
had inscribed upon its forehead. Its weightier matters were 
judgment and mercy, and faith and love. It had taken the 
stranger under its special and benignant protection. Twice 
over it had proclaimed, ‘“‘Thou shalt not see thy brother’s 
ass or thy brother’s ox fall down by the way and hide thy- 
self from them—thou shalt surely help him to lift them up 
again,” And was aman not much better than an ass or an 
ox? And should not this priest and Levite—had they read 
aright their own Jewish law—have lifted up again their 
prostrate bleeding brother? But they had misread that law. 
. They had misconceived and perverted that segregation from 
all the other communities of the earth which it had taught 
the Jewish people to cultivate. Instead of seeing in this 
temporary isolation the means of distributing the blessings 
of the Messiah’s kingdom wide over all the earth, they had 
regarded it as raising them to a position of proud superiority 
from which they might say to every other nation, “Stand 


710 WILLIAM HANNA. 


back, for we are holier than you.’ And once perverted 
thus, the whole strength of their religious faith went to 
intensify the spirit of nationality, and inflame it into a 
passion, within whose close and sultry atmosphere the lights 
even of common human kindness were extinguished. It 
was in a priest and in a Levite that we should expect to see 
this spirit carried out to its extreme degree, as it has been 
always in the priestly caste that the fanatical piety which 
has trampled under foot the kindliest sentiments of humanity 
has shown itself in its darkest and most repulsive form. 
After the priest and Levite have gone by, a certain Sa- 
maritan approaches. He too is arrested. He too turns 
aside to look upon this pitiable spectacle. For aught that 
he can tell, this naked wounded man may be a Jew. There 
were many Jews and but few Samaritans travelling ordinarily 
by this road. The chances were a thousand to one that he 
was a Jew. And this Samaritan must have shared in the 
common feelings of his people towards the Jews—hatred 
repaying hatred. But he thinks not of distinction of race_ 
or faith. The sight before him of a human being—a brother 
man in the extremity of distress — swallows up all such 
thoughts. As soon as he sees him he has compassion on him. 
He alights—strips off a portion of his own raiment—brings 
out the oil and the wine that he had provided for his own 
comfort by the way—tenderly binds up the wounds—gently 
lifts the body up and places it on his own beast—moves with 
such gentle pace away as shall least exasperate the recent 
wounds. Intent upon his task, he forgets his own affairs— 
forgets the danger of lingering so long in such a neighbor- 
hood—is not satisfied till he reaches the inn by the roadside. — 
Having done so much, may he not leave him now? No, he 
cannot part from him till he sees what a night’s rest will do. 
The morning sees his rescued brother better. Now he may 
depart. Yes, but not till he has done all he can to secure 
that he be properly waited on till all danger is over. He 
may be a humane enough man, the keeper of this inn, but 


THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 711 


days will pass before the sufferer can safely travel, and it 
may not be safe or wise to count upon the continuance of 
his kindness. The Samaritan gives the innkeeper enough to 
keep his guest for six or seven days, and tells him that 
whatever he spends more will be repaid. Having thus done 
all that the most thoughtful kindness could suggest to pro- 
mote and secure recovery, he goes to bid his rescued brother 
farewell. Perhaps the good Samaritan leaves him in utter 
ignorance of who or what he was. Perhaps those pale and 
trembling lips are still unable to articulate his thanks—but 
that parting look in which a heart’s whole swelling gratitude 
goes out—it goes with him and kindles a strange joy. He 
never saw the sun look half so bright—he never saw the 
plain of Jordan look half so fair—a happier man than he never 
trod the road to Jericho. True, he had lost a day, but he had 
saved a brother; and while many a time in after life the look 
of that stark and bleeding body, as he first saw it lying on 
the roadside, would come to haunt his fancy—ever behind it 
would there come that look of love and gratitude to chase 
the spectral form away, and fill his heart with light and joy. 
Here too is a triumph, not one, however, of prejudice over 
humanity, but of humanity over prejudice. For it were 
idle to think that it was because of any superiority over the 
priest and the Levite in his abstract ideas of the sphere of 
neighborhood, and of the claims involved in simple partici- 
pation of humanity, that this Samaritan acted as he did. 
No, it was simply because he obeyed the impulses of a kind 
and loving heart, and that these were strong enough to lift 
him above all those prejudices of tribe and caste and faith, 
to which he, equally with the Jew, was liable. 

And was there not good reason for it, that in the records 
of our Christian faith, in the teachings of its Divine Author, 
one solemn warning of this kind should be lifted up—one 
illustrious example of this kind should be exhibited? Our 
Redeemer came to establish another and closer bond of 
brotherhood than the earth before had known, to knit all 


T12 WILLIAM HANNA. 


true believers in the pure and holy fellowship of a common 
faith, a common hope, .a common heirship of eternal life 
through him. But he would have us from the beginning 
know that this bond, so new, so sacred, so divine, was never 
meant to thwart or violate that other broader universal tie 
that binds the whole family of our race together, that makes 
each man the neighbor of every other man that tenants this 
earthly globe. Christianity, like Judaism, has been pervert- 
ed,—perverted so as seriously to interfere with, sometimes 
almost entirely to quench, the sentiment of an universal 
philanthropy ; but it has been so only when its true genius 
and spirit have been misapprehended ; for of all influences 
that have ever descended upon our earth, none has ever done 
so much to break down the walls of separation that differences 
of country, language, race, religion, have raised between 
man and man, and to diffuse the spirit of that brotherly love 
. which overleaps all these temporary and artificial fences and 
boundary lines—which, subject to no law of limits, is a law 
itself—which, like the air and light of heaven, diffuses itself 
everywhere around over the broad field of humanity — 
tempering all, uniting all, brightening all, smoothing asperities, 
harmonizing discords, pouring a healing balm into all the 
rankling sores of life. } 
‘Which now of the three,’ said Jesus to the lawyer, 
‘was neighbor to him that fell among the thieves ?”’ 
Ashamed to say plainly “‘ The Samaritan,” yet unwilling 
or unable to exhibit any hesitation in his reply, he said, 
‘“‘He that showed mercy on him.”’ Then said Jesus unto him, 
‘¢Go, and do thou likewise.” It is not “ Listen and applaud,” 
it is “Go and do.’ If there be anything above another 
that distinguishes the conduct of the good Samaritan, it is 
its thoroughly practical character. He wasted no needless 
sympathy, he shed no idle tears. There are wounds that 
may be dressed,—he puts forth his own hand immediately 
to the dressing of them. ‘There is a life that may be saved, 
—he sets himself to use every method by which it may be 


THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 713 


saved. He gives more than time, more than money: he 
gives personal service. And that is the true human charity 
that shows itself in prompt, efficient, self-forgetful, self- 
sacrificing help. You can get many soft, susceptible, senti- 
mental spirits to weep over any scene or tale of woe. But 
it is not those who will weep the readiest over the sorrow 
will do the most to relieve it. Sympathy has its own selfish- 
ness; there is a luxury in the tears that it loves idly to 
indulge. Tears will fill the eye——should fill the eye—but 
the hand of active help will brush them away, that the eye 
may see more clearly what the hand has to do. Millions 
have heard or read the tale of the Good Samaritan. Their 
eyes have glistened and their hearts have been all aglow. in 
approving, applauding sympathy; but of all these millions, 
how many are there who imitate the example given, who 
have given a day from their business to a suffering brother, 
who have waited by the sick, and with their own hand have 
ministered to his wants ? 

The beauty and force of that special lesson which the story 
of the Good Samaritan was intended to convey, is mightily 
enhanced as we remember how recently our Lord himself 
had suffered from the intolerance of the Samaritans; only 
a few days before, we know not how few, having been refused 
entrance into one of their villages. He himself then gave 
an exhibition of the very virtue he designed to inculcate. 
But why speak of this as any single minor act of universal 
love to mankind on his part? Was not his life and death 
one continuous manifestation of that love? Yes, bright ag 
that single act of the Good Samaritan shines in the annals 
of human kindness, all its brightness fades away in the full 
blaze of that love of Jesus, which saw not a single traveller, 
but our whole race, cast forth naked, bleeding, dying, and, 
gave not a day of his time, nor a portion of his raiment, 
but a whole lifetime of service and of suffering, that they 
might not perish, but have everlasting life. 


XL Vel. 
THE HEALING WATERS. 


PUNSHON. 

[Perhaps—by popular approval—the first in eloquence of living 
Wesleyan ministers is Witt1amM Mortey Pounsnon, D.D. He was 
born at Doncaster, in Yorkshire, May 29th 1824, and spent his youth 
as clerk in a counting-house. At eighteen he exhorted spiritedly as a 
local preacher, and soon received a pastoral charge. In 1851 he was 
called to Sheffield, and a few years later his fame secured him the 
prize of a London pastorate. His discourses are carefully thought 
out and elaborated in all details, committed exactly to memory, and 
are delivered with a vim and magnetic power which captivate the 
feelings and entrance the wills of his hearers. He accepted the 
presidency of the Conference of the Canadian Wesleyan Church, and 
of the University at Toronto, Canada, in 1868. ‘This sermon was 
delivered in St. Paul’s M. E. Church, New York, the following year. | 


“ And it shall come to pass, that everything that liveth, which moveth, 
whithersoever the rivers shall come, shall live: and there shall be a very 
great multitude of fish, because these waters shall come thither : for they 
shall be healed; and everything shall live whither the river cometh.” — 
Ezekiel xlvii. 9. 


THE last clause of the verse is that to which I especially 
direct your attention: ‘‘ And everything shall live whither 
the river cometh.” | 

I have somewhere seen a picture which, in brief words and 
from dim memories only, I will endeavor to describe. The 
scene is in the far East, the hour just when the earth is 
lighted up with that rare Oriental sunrise which we Westerns 
love to see; the time, the sultry August, when the fierce sun 
has it all his own way, and when the earth has a sickly cast 
upon it, as if it fainted almost beneath the intensity of the 
glare; the plain is scorched and arid, the river pressing 


within its sedgy banks seems to have hardly strength enough 
(714) 


THE HEALING WATERS. 715 


to propel its sluggish stream. There, on an eminence, 
beneath a group of ancestral palms, is a knot of Egyptian 
peasants, swarthy and muscular, their eyes strained wildly 
towards the south, in which quarter there seems to be an in- 
describable haze, forecasting the shadow of some atmospheric 
or other change. Why wait they there so eagerly? Why 
is their gaze fastened distinctly upon the point where the 
river glimmers faintly on the horizon’s dusky forehead? 
Because they are conscious from the experience of years, 
that the time has come for the inundation of the ‘Nile. 
They do not know how it will be swelled: they are not able 
to tell the source from which the tribute is distilled, how in 
the far Abyssinia it gathers its volume of waters; but as 
certainly as if their knowledge was profound and scientific, 
they calculate upon the coming flood. And they know, too, 
that when the flood does come, that arid plain shall wave 
with ripening grain; there shall be corn in Egypt, and those 
blackened pastures will be gay with such fertile plenty that 
the whole land shall eat and be satisfied, ‘‘ for everything 
shall live whither the river cometh.” So marvellous shall 
be the transformation that the Turkish description of the 
Egyptian climate shall almost hold good: that for three 
months it is white like pearl; for three months brown like 
musk, for three months green like emerald, for three months 
yellow like gold. 

This picture has struck me as furnishing us with a very 
graphic representation of Ezekiel’s vision embodied in the 
experience of Eastern life. Nothing certainly can better 
image the moral barrenness of the world and the wilderness 
of sin than that plain upon which the consuming heat has 
alighted, withering the green herb and inducing the dread 
of famine. Nothing can better set forth the life and heal- 
ing of the Gospel of Christ than the flow of that blessed 
life-giving river; and nothing can better show the attitude 
befitting all earnest Christian men than the attitude of these 


716 WILLIAM M. PUNSHON. 


peasants, eager and earnest, watching the first murmurings 
of the quiescent waters that they might catch and spread 
the joy. 

There is, of course, a spiritual application of the vision, 
which appears to have been intended in the glowing lan- 
guage of Ezekiel, and that spiritual application is in the 
Gospel of Jesus Christ, made effectual by the Holy Ghost 
for the healing and for the salvation of men. You remem- 
ber that, under the same similitude, the Gospel is frequently 
presented to us in the pages of the Word. After the simili- 
tude of living water, its blessings were promised to the 
Samaritan woman; the stranger who lifted up his voice in 
the feast said that in the heart of each believer there should 
be a fountain springing up into everlasting life; and in 
identity between the seer of the Old Testament and the 
evangelist of the New, John saw a river of water of life, 
clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of 
the Lamb. We do not err, therefore, if we present to you 
these holy waters as emblematic of the scheme of perfected 
atonement, made vital by the Spirit of God, and adapted 
for the salvation of men. In this aspect of it, meditation 
for afew moments upon the source, the progress, and the 
efficacy of the healing waters, will not be out of place 
to-day. | 

There is said to have been a copious fountain upon the 
west side of the city of Jerusalem. At this fountain, which 
was called Gihon, Zadok and Abiathar, priests of the Lord, 
stood by the side of the youthful Solomon, and, with many 
holy solemnities, proclaimed him king. The prudent Heze- 
kiah, foreseeing that in time of war its waters might be cut 
off by an enemy, conducted them by a secret aqueduct into 
the city. David found in the purifying virtues of the foun- 
tain one of his choicest inspirations when he struck his harp 
and sang, ‘‘ There is a river the streams whereof make glad 
the city of God, the holy place, the tabernacle of the Most 


THE HEALING WATERS. v6 | 


High.” Now, it may be that there was some subtle connec- 
tion of thought between this fountain and the vision which 
floated before the senses of Ezekiel, as the stream was from 
the foundations of the temple, and from the foundations of 
the holy house in the vision the prophet saw the healing 
waters spring. Be this as it may, the truth is significant to 
us that through the temple come to us the tidings of bless- 
ing, that the tidings do not originate in the temple, but have 
their source and origin that is invisible and afar. 

In God’s provision for the restoration of the fallen race 
there are both instrumentalities and efficient agencies. He 
has appointed means, and although there is no innate power 
in means as God’s appointed channels of blessing, they are 
not to be despised. There is not now, as in the Jewish dis- 
pensation, any central spot where the holy oracles exclu- 
sively speak and where religion preserves its most precious 
and hallowed memories; the prestige and the sacredness of 
the old Jerusalem have passed away for ever, but the means 
of grace are invested with a sacredness that is peculiarly 
their own. There are special promises of favor yet for 
those who wait upon God and for those who call upon his 
name. ‘They deprive themselves of a large inheritance of 
blessing, and are deeply criminal withal, who forsake the 
assembling of themselves together in the place where the 
ordinance of preaching is celebrated, where the sacraments 
are duly administered, and where prayer is wont to be made. 
The ordinances of religion may be, and very often are, observed 
only with external decorum. The song may be the formal 
verse, the prayer may be lip-service merely, and -the whole 
service may be a Sabbath compromise with conscience and 
for a week’s indulgence in sin, but to the true-hearted and to 
the contrite, it is from the temple that the’ healing waters 
flow. : 

The heart, ignorant of God and of its own duty, dimly 
conscious that the reconciliation for which it pants must 


718 WILLIAM M. PUNSHON. 


come to it through the merits of another, hears of him in 
the temple, and is glad. The contrite one, loathing his 
former practices of iniquity, bows tearfully in the temple as 
he says, ‘‘ The foolish shall not stand in thy sight, and thou 
hatest all the workers of iniquity; but as for me, I will 
worship toward thy holy temple.’’ Here, as in a spiritual 
laver sea, the polluted soul is cleansed by the washing of 
water and the word. Here the poor children of sin smile 
through their tears as they are satisfied with the goodness 
of his house, and the lame halts no longer as he emerges 
from this Bethesda of the paralyzed whose waters have been 
sent from on high. It is between the cherubim that God 
especially shines; it is among the golden candlesticks that 
God walks to bless his people. Here, as in a gorgeous and 
well-furnished hall of banqueting, believers eat of the fat- 
ness of his house and drink of the river of his pleasure; in 
_ the temple is at once the highest instruction, the sweetest 
comfort, the closest fellowship with God, and the amplest 
preparation for heaven. 

Brethren, your presence in the temple this morning 
proves that the way to it is a familiar road to you-—but do 
you love its courts? are they homes to you—homes of en- 
dearment and of blessing? ‘The Lord loveth the gates of 
Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob.” A gate more 
than a house—that is the Lord’s arithmetic in reference to 
the temples of his presence. ‘‘ The Lord loveth the gates of 
Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob.’’ Are your likes 
like his? or like his servant’s—the holy psalmist—“ that 
you may, dwell in the house of the Lord, to behold the 
beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple,” as the 
oracle where your eager minds may discover the perfection 
of truth, as a shrine where your enamored hearts may 
behold the perfection of beauty? Oh! they who love the 
temple are the likeliest, standing on its banks, to trace the 


THE HEALING WATERS. 719 


source of it as it issues from the throne. So much for the 
instrumental agency. 

While we appreciate the advantages of the temple, while 
we rejoice in the flow of the healing waters, we must re- 
member always that they issue from the foundations of the 
house, and that their springs are in the everlasting hills. 
In other words, that God is the only source of life, and that 
means, unless he vitalizes them, are but the letter that kill- 
eth—the shadow of good things to come. You are suffi- 
ciently instructed in the things of God. to know that he has 
confided the great work of human redemption to no agency 
that is less powerful than his own; for, while the atheist 
cannot find God, while the deist is deaf to his revelation, 
and while the pantheist reduces him to an abstraction, the 
heart of a good woman leaps up within her at remembering 
that all around her there is God—a living, personal, omni- 
potent, gracious God. 

One of the glorious beliefs which fence round our own in- 
dividual faith, as with a rampart of impregnable strength, 
is this: that ever since the revelation of Christianity, this 
tear-stricken world of ours has been not many days orphaned 
of a present God. In olden time, God spake to the world 
in symbol, in vision, by thunder and by fire; but even amid 
the comparative dimness of the Mosaic economy, the Son of 
God, as if impatient to begin his great work of redemption, 
paid preliminary visits to the scene of his future incarnation, 
and took upon him the form of an angel, while yet the full- 
ness of time had not come for him to take upon him the 
form of aman. In the days of his flesh, he perfected the 
work of atonement by one offering for sins for ever, needing 
no repetition, losing none of its rich crimson through the 
lapse of years. By one offering for ever, he gave the world 
at once its sublimest morality and its most spotless example ; 
vanquished death by dying, and gave the proof of the vic- 
tory by the resurrection out of a baffled tomb, and then, 


720 WILLIAM M. PUNSHON. 


having furnished the instrument of propagation, and having 
promised the agent of propagation, he ascended up on high. 

Through the interval, heavy and trying to the expectant 
twelve, but not many days according to the calendar, the 
promise of the Father bridged over the chasm between the 
ascent of the Son and the descent of the Spirit. It was a 
solemn hush, like the stern silence that reigns along the line 
of battle between the hoarse word of command and the 
fierce onslaught upon the foe. The Saviour had said upon 
the cross, ‘‘It is finished,’ and, as a token that it was 
finished—a token that neither men nor devils could gainsay 
—he snatched up the thief by his side, and took him with 
him as the first fruits of the Pentecost ; and then, when he 
had chosen his disciples, and furnished them with every qua- 
lification for their great work, what was his language? 
Strange scene! ‘Go! but tarry. Do not march undisci- 
plined and without a leader. Wait until, like the mysteri- 
ous stranger that appeared before the camp of Gideon, the 
Captain of the Lord’s host shall come. Tarry ye in the 
city of Jerusalem until ye be endued with power from on 
high.” And suddenly and richly that baptism of fire came 
—fell upon the anointed ones in the upper room, was kin- 
dled by their instrumentality in many hearts in Jerusalem, 
and has gone burning on until now. Oh! do you not see 
the fullness and the richness of the provision? The world 
could not be trusted without a God in it, and so, not many 
days after, God the Son went up, and God the Spirit came 
down. ‘The issues pending were so solemn, the results of 
failure would have been so appalling to the universe of God, 
that there must be a present Deity in order to carry on the 
great work in the world ; and so, while the atheist cannot find 
God, while the deist is deaf to his revelation, and while the 
pantheist deprives him of his personality, here is God, the 
Holy Ghost, as the Christian’s living representative of God, 
as the great Inspirer, not of the ancient seers only, but of 


THE HEALING WATERS. 721 


the modern truth, and as the great, constant, living Agent 
in the conviction and in the conversion of souls. 

Brethren, so soon as Christ had ascended up on high, the 
fullness of the Spirit came down. Is it not a comforting 
truth: ‘We believe in the Holy Ghost’? Is there any 
one who would wish us to blot that article out of our creed? 
Was there ever a time when it was more necessary for us to 
affirm it to the teeth of men, and in the face of hostile con- 
federacies of error and of scorn? ‘We believe in the Holy 
Ghost.”” What else would assure our confidence amid the 
insolence of error and the haughtiness of scorn, amid the 
craft of demon hate and hostile conspiracies of evil, amid 
the audacious wickedness of our own hearts, amid earth’s 
fickle people and earth’s banded kings? What else would 
fortify our trust in the word, which has within it every 
element of opposition to ungodliness, but no element of 
triumph over evil? 

Men say that truth is power. It is not: alone, it is as 
feeble as the pliant osier or as the bruised reed against the 
banded malignity of men; but let the Spirit come into it, 
and then it overcomes speedily, is brave, and is mighty to pre- 
vail. Brethren, that Spirit is in the truth which I preach 
in your hearing to-day. He has promised to apply the truth 
to every conscience and to every heart. Let us honor him 
by asking for his presence. Prayer will be a profitless 
litany, praise will be a foolish tinkling of cymbals, and our 
whole devotional service will be a bootless trouble unless he 
come down in the midst of us with his inspiration and with 
his blessing. We shall still dishonor God, we shall still be 
greedy to do evil, we shall still follow in the trail of the ser- 
pent, we shall still fall into a recompense of doom, unless . 
the Holy Spirit inspire us. The prayer of the stammerer 
will be eloquent, the most tuneless strain a doxology, and 
the meanest offering an acceptable sacrifice, if only he in- 
spire them; the darkness of the ignorant shall be enlightened, 

22 


722 WILLIAM M. PUNSHON. 


the distress of the contrite shall be soothed, the way of the 
perplexed shall be straitened, the wound of the apostate 
shall be healed, and visions of brightness shall break upon 
the dulled eyes of the dying, if only the Divine Spirit—God 
the Holy Ghost—be there. Here, then, are the instrumental 
and efficient agencies for the propagation of the Gospel of 
Christ—the flowing river, and the source of the river. 
‘“‘ Kverything shall live whither the river cometh.” It issues 
out of the temple; but its springs are away from the foun- 
dation of the house, far off in the everlasting hills. 

Let us notice, secondly, for a moment or two, the progress 
of the healing waters. You notice that in the vision the 
progress of it is presented to us as gradual and constant. 
The prophet saw the waters flowing first to the ankles, then 
to the knees, then to the loins, and then it was a river that 
could not be passed over; even ariver for a man to swim 
in. The progress was gradual and constant. There was no 
ceasing of the flow; there was no ebbing of the waters; 
they gradually and constantly flowed in an ever-deepening 
stream. This is a description of the Gospel of Christ, small 
and feeble in its beginnings. Trembling but earnest fisher- 
men were its first preachers; wealth, rank, patronage, and 
power were all arrayed against it; Caesars conspired to 
strangle it, and armies marched out against its fugitive 
sons. 

How marvellous was its triumph! Think of the rapidity 
of its original spread! Jerusalem filled with the doctrine; 
Antioch, Corinth, Ephesus, Thessalonica, Athens, Rome, all 
trembling beneath its denunciations of their vices within a 
century of its Founder’s death. “‘ We are but of yesterday,” 
says Tertullian in his apology, “and we have filled your 
cities, islands, towns, and boroughs; the camp, the senate, 
and the forum.” Writers of the second century speak of 
the whole world of the Roman Empire as filled with the 
doctrine of Christ, and it is known that Constantine placed 


THE HEALING WATERS. 120 


the cross upon the imperial banners, establishing Christi- 
anity as the religion of the state, and at the close of the 
fourth century, when Julian gasped out his celebrated dying 
cry, it was not the apostate only, it was the world that the 
Galilean had overcome: and although after the establish- 
ment of Christianity, there came an eclipse of faith, and 
blemishes disfigured somewhat the comeliness of the bride 
of Christ, yet its gradual progress among the nations did 
not cease. Qne after another they heard its tidings and 
submitted to its sway; insensibly it moulded the institutions 
of society and stamped upon them its own beauteous image 5 
sanguinary codes.were relaxed, unholy traffic was termi- 
nated, cruelty had its arm paralyzed and its sword blunted ; 
fraud, lust, and drunkenness became no longer things of 
glorying, but things of shame; and there was a gradual 
uplifting in the moral health, as if men felt the bracing air- 
waves of a new atmosphere, and they wondered whence the 
healing came. 

Oh! it was the river that did it all, flowing on, now in 
the gurgling brook, and now on the open plain, now fer- 
tilizing the swards upon its banks, and now rejoicing in the 
depths of its own channel, imperceptible almost in the in- 
creasing volume of its waters to those who gazed upon it 
every day, but to those who gazed upon it only at intervals, 
seeming to be widening and deepening every hour that it has 
rolled. And it is rolling still. Perhaps there never was an 
age of such quickened activity and privilege as the age in 
which we live. Here and there and yonder there have been 
manifestations of the healing power of the Gospel. You 
see the cloud rising and bursting over this and over that hill 
of Zion, in plenteous showers of blessing. Is it not so? 
Churches that for years have been languid have been quick- 
ened into a warmth of life which has astonished them, and 
the heart of old formalities has been smitten like the rock 
of Horeb, and the crystal waters have flowed forth even in 


724 WILLIAM M. PUNSHON. 


the wilderness to rejoice the hearts of men. Ministers who 
have toiled disheartened, for years and years sowing the 
seed, as they fancied, upon the rock where it baffled the 
skill of the husbandman, have been bringing their sheaves 
with the reaper’s bursting gladness, and everything has told 
that the moral summer of the world has been coming. And 
what is it all? Oh! just the flowing of the ancient river 
coming past our homesteads, its waters sparkling in the heal- 
ing sun, and the melody of the daughters of musi¢ on its 
banks, making glad the city of our God. | 

Now, brethren, if this be so, there are two solemn thoughts 
here. Do not rejoice in the progress and forget the appli- 
cation: the one encourages our trust, the other reminds us 
of our responsibility. If it be really so that God has ap- 
pointed that this Gospel should spread and. progress in the 
world, and if we get fastened into our spirits a conviction 
~ that this Gospel shall and must triumph, the only thing for 
us to mind is that we are in the partnership, in order that, 
as workers together with God, we may be sure and have our 
share in the recompense when the sowers and the reapers 
shall rejoice together. Oh! if we could only get this 
thought fastened into our spirits, we should be preserved 
from unusual elation in the time of apparent prosperity, and 
from unusual depression in times of apparent languor. 
Opposition may crumble into dust, or, like mountains of 
ice, may melt before the warmth of the sun, while public 
opinion, changeful ever and always, may applaud the heroism 
or laugh at the fanaticism of the Church; legislation may 
benefit or may brand godliness (it has done both, and it will 
do both again with equal heartiness and with equal facility) ; 
the choicest of the Church’s youth may press into the ranks 
of the ministry, with a holy emulation to be baptized for the 
dead, or it may leave the ministry to be recruited from the 
ranks of the comparatively mean and unlettered, themselves 
preferring opulence and lettered ease; the spirit of revival 


THE HEALING WATERS. 725 


may spread like a beacon blaze from hill to hill, or it may be 
thwarted by indifference, or thwarted equally by the excesses 
or fanaticism of its votaries; good men may fall in quick 
succession out of Zion—but the Gospel goes on through all 
vicissitudes ; it wins its widening way; it is never languid, 
although its advocates fail; it marches with the ages, or 
they wonder at finding it ahead of them in the great course 
of civilization, progress, freedom, and heavenly endeavor. 
Its doctrines never become antiquated, its face never shrivels 
up, and just as it was in the beginning, it is to-day. Time 
writes no wrinkle on its azure brow; there is immortal 
youth about it, and a fitness for the world of the nineteenth, 
as for the third, century. There is no modern error that can 
set itself up insolently without meeting the fate of Dagon 
before the ancient Ark. 

Christianity can be trusted by the world to-day as by the 
world of the early apostolic age; there is nothing can mas- 
ter it; there is nothing can retard or overcome it. It can 
gather its triumphs still, just as it was wont to do, from the 
very dregs and refuse of society ; and if it wants its choicest 
apostle, it can take hold of the blasphemer, the persecutor, 
and the injurious man, and lift him up into an apostleship, 
higher than they all. It saves sinners still; it comforts be- 
lievers now; it shines with sweetest lustre in the chamber 
of affliction, and its praises are gasped from pale beds of 
death. Oh! you can trust the Gospel! If you believe that 
it is destined to prevail, and that the power of the Holy 
Ghost within it shall never suffer it to die, then, calm and 
free from tumult, catch somewhat of the spirit of the Master. 
All the troubles of the world do not affect him. ‘This man, 
after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, for evef sat down.” 
Men do not sit when their work is going on; they are stand- 
ing as long as there is anxiety about that. But ‘this man, 
after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down, 
expecting.” 


726 WILLIAM M. PUNSHON. 


O the sublimity of that imperial quiet! ‘The heathen 
rage’ down below; it does not move him. He sits “‘ expect- 
ing.” “The kings of the earth take counsel together 
against the Lord and against his anointed.”” Not a muscle 
of his face moves; he sits “‘expecting.”’ ‘The people” 
(worse than all external opposition), the people themselves, 
‘imagine a vain thing.” He that sits in the heaven 
still sits expecting until his enemies be made his footstool. 
He knows that the end will. come; he has done his work, 
and he is satisfied ; already he sees before him of the travail 
of his soul, and the duty of imperial quiet which the Master 
has assumed should be the attitude so far as the anticipation 
of the future triumph of the Gospel is concerned, of the 
Master’s people too. You will not be discouraged if your 
faith is strong, and if, with a living personality of conscious- 
ness, you believe in the Holy Ghost. 

Well, then, the second thought reminds you of your re- 
sponsibility. How impressively it comes upon you! Being 
heirs of such a heritage as this, born in such a day of privi- 
lege, around which so many solemn associations and beliefs 
gather, surely there must be responsibility devolving upon 
us ; for it is a law of God’s government that wherever there 
is power, there is a use and a mission for that power. Oh! 
it is a great thing to live in times like these, but itis a 
greater thing to be fit to live in times like these. It is im- 
possible to live in such an age, an age when no ordinary 
privileges are enjoyed, when there is a special unction attend- 
ing the ministration of the word, where there are large and 
manifest workings of the Holy Ghost, without entailing an 
added responsibility to do anything which our fathers have 
done. We are the Chorazins and the Bethsaidas of the 
present in whom all God's mighty works are done, and if 
the ancient Capernaum has a successor at all, it will be 
surely in the nations where the light of Gospel truth has long 
been shining, and where the country spreads her wgis over 
the worshippers, that none may dare to make them afraid. 


THE HEALING WATERS. 727 


The question, then, presses itself upon all: Am I holier, 
am I more spiritually-minded, do | get heavenlier by my privi- 
lege day by day? ‘The waters have been flowing past my 
homestead for years and years; am I perishing or thirsting 
by their side? Have I never stooped to drink them yet? 
Brethren, the waters wear the stones (that is a wonderful 
passage); but they are stones still, although worn. The 
waters do not change their nature, and what water cannot 
change it petrifies. Have you never heard of the dropping 
wells that have been outpouring continually for years, con- 
verting the mosses upon the shelvy rock into the richest 
emerald that your eyes ever gazed upon? But what is the 
ground underneath? Cold, hard stone: And there are 
some consciences that have sat so long under the sound 
of the Gospel, that they shall never be broken, not even by 
the hammer of the Word. May God save us from such a 
doom! These thoughts have come, almost when I did not reck 
of them, in reference to the efficacy of these healing waters. 
It is not necessary, therefore, for me at any length to en- 
large. It has been almost impossible to avoid allusion to 
them in a former part of the discourse. The places, how- 
ever, into which the waters flowed are very striking. They 
did not direct their course into spots that were very slightly 
defective, and, therefore, very readily healed; they did not 
impart a partial and temporary life under very favorable 
circumstances. ‘They flowed into the desert and into the 
sea; into the desert where no stream had flowed before; 
into the Dead Sea in whose sad, sluggish waters nothing 
which had breath could live. Thus their mission was to sup- 
ply all that was lacking, and to purify all that was impure. 

How complete and effectual the healing! ‘ Everything 
shall live whither the river cometh.” And this is true of 
the Gospel of Christ. There is no desert of worldliness 
anywhere which the Gospel cannot turn into a garden ; 
there is no Dead Sea of error which the Gospel cannot 
purge from its pollution and transform into a receptacle 


728 WILLIAM M. PUNSHON. 


of life. The completeness of the healing is one of the 
most agreeable of its characteristics, and furnishes to those 
who rejoice in it their loftiest materials of praise. The 
world is a vast valley—a valley of the dead, without motion, 
without strength, without hope; but there is not one of those 
unburied corpses that may not be quickened into life. 
‘“‘ Hverything’’—am I bold to affirm it ?—‘‘ everything may 
live whither the river cometh!’ The Gospel has life in it 
for all. Its voice can reach to the furthest wards of the 
sepulchre, and there is no catacomb that is too remote, too 
crowded, or too loathsome to be visited and to be emptied ; 
however long death may have had sway, the Gospel can 
chase it from the heart—ay, though time may have resolved 
the dust into dust again, and though the soul, ike a mummy 
of the Pharaohs, may be swathed in its embalmment for many 
centuries of years, everything shall live whither the river 
cometh. 

Not only may each man be brought under the influence, 
but each part of each man may be redeemed: light for the 
understanding, that it may no longer be darkened by the 
clouds of speculative error; light for the imagination, that 
it may quench its strange fires in the blood of the Lamb and 
snatch from the altar of his cross a brighter and more hal- 
lowed flame; light for the memory, that it may be haunted 
no longer by the ghostly scenes and spectral thoughts of 
evil, but that it may hoard with miser’s care every fraction 
of knowledge and transform it into an argument for God; 
life for the affections, that they may spend the bloom of 
their intensity of love on an object upon which they can 
expatiate without fear of idolatry, and without fear either 
of treachery or change; life for the whole nature, that it 
may rise from the death of sin into the better life of God; 
life for the soul, that it may not be sullied even by the sha- 
dow of death, but that, in the pure white light of the Re- 
deemer’s presence, it may go upward and upward into the 
sacred, high, eternal noon of heaven. ‘‘ Everything shall 


THE HEALING WATERS. 729 


live whither the river cometh.” It shall flow into the desert, 
the life of God shall be implanted in the wilderness, and the 
whole nature:shall be so turned about, that the barrenness 
shall become a bloom. ‘Instead of the thorn shall come 
up the fir-tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the 
myrtle-tree, and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an 
everlasting sign which shall not be cut off.” It shall flow 
‘into the sea, and though the proud waters resist its influence, 
it shall overcome their frantic billows, and in spite of them 
shall heal it of its plague. 

Some of you may have seen what I conceive to be an 
illustration of this, as I have seen, in nature’s bounteous 
kingdom. I stood some years ago, on a bright summer’s 
day, at the meeting of the waters near the city of Geneva, 
where two rivers meet, but do not mingle, the Aar and the 
Rhone. One with its beautiful water of heavenly blue, 
which it is almost worth a pilgrimage to see, and the other 
muddy, partly from the glaciers, of which it is largely com- 
posed, and partly from the clay soil which it upheaves, come 
meeting together from two several points. For miles and 
miles they go, with no barrier between them except their own 
innate repulsions ; they meet, but do not mingle. Now and 
then one makes a slight encroachment into the province of 
the other, but is speedily beaten back again; like mighty 
rival forces of good and evil do they seem, and for a long 
while the struggle is doubtful ; but if you will look far down 
the valley, into a quiet little nook, you find the Rhone has 
mastered, and covered the whole surface of the river with 
its own emblematic and beautiful blue. I thought, as I 
stood there and gazed, that there was a grand illustration 
of the ultimate triumph of truth over error; and in medi- 
tating upon this vision of Ezekiel, and reading that those 
healing waters shall flow into the sea and heal it, the scene 
rose up before me fresh and vivid, as if I had seen it yester- 
day, and as my own faith was confirmed, and my own appre- 
hension quickened by the memory, I have sought in these 


730 WILLIAM M. PUNSHON. 


few words to impart some of the vividness of the apprehen- 
sion to you. ‘‘ Everything !’’—oh ! it is a beautiful thought, 
and I can rest in it because God has spoken it, otherwise the 
plague of my own heart would weigh me down; otherwise 
the great, the giant temptations that impart to my soul a 
struggling bitterness which no stranger may know, might 
well cause me to despond—*“ everything shall live whither 
the river cometh.’”’ No impurity, no leprosy, no death 
which cannot be healed by the flowing of this life-giving 
river. 

There is hope for every one of you. Perhaps there has 
straggled into this room this morning some one whose life 
has been a treason and an outrage upon all the traits of 
humanity ; some one who is looked upon even by society 
around him as a very Pariah, whom a high-caste Brahmin 
would hardly stoop to look upon, and would gather up the 

fringes of his robes as he passed him by, but to whom, as I 
speak this morning, the Holy Spirit has come, and has im- 
pressed upon him a strange, strong agony of desire to repent 
and reform. My brother, there is hope for thee, though 
thou hast far gone in evil; though thou hast blasphemed 
thy Maker, and trampled under foot the blood of the cove- 
nant, counting it an unholy thing; though thou hast gone 
so far that thou art almost standing upon the verge of the 
bottomless pit; though the ground is unsteady as if an 
earthquake slumbered beneath it; though the yell of demon 
voices sounds hoarsely in the distance, and the tramp of 
demon feet appears to be coming nearer and nearer, exult- 
ingly to claim thee as their prey—now in this crisis of your 
fate, one cry, one upward glance of penitence and faith, the 
silent whisper of prayer, and He who gives that penitence ~ 
and imparts that faith will lift thee up out of the horrible 
pit, and out of the miry clay; he will set thy feet upon the 
rock of ages; will lift thee up higher that thou mayest sit 
in heavenly places in Christ, so that all the world, looking 


THE HEALING WATERS. 731 


at thee and at the Saviour who has delivered thee, may say: 
‘“‘Is not this a brand plucked from the burning?” Who of 
you will accept of this salvation now? “Everything shall 
live whither the river cometh.” 

Some of you have already rejoiced in the life and healing 
of the waters. You know that they issue from the founda- 
tion of the house, and that it is in the temple you are to find 
some of their channels. By God’s blessing, those of you 
who love the Lord, and have taken upon you the vows of 
discipleship, are here this morning to receive the tokens of a 
Father’s love, in the Father’s house, at the Father’s table. 
He blesses and sustains you at home; he consecrates the 
frugal board, and makes it often a banquet; and what is 
there that he will refuse to you in his own house, and on his 
own day, and at his own table? You are coming into his 
house now—his banqueting hali—and his banner over you 
is love. , 

The communion that you are to celebrate this morning is 
not a test of membership in the Church; it is the feast of 
the faithful, when the Father spreads the board, and all the 
sons and daughters come round, and feel the pleasure of his 
countenance. ‘‘ They joy before thee according to the joy 
of harvest, as men rejoice when they divide the spoil.” 
Come and renew your faith again; come and pay your 
vows again! When David, in the olden time, was bewil- 
dered with the multitude of God’s mercies, and said, ‘*‘ What 
shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me ?”’ 
how soon he came to the answer: ‘I will take the cup of 
salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord. I will pay 
my vows unto the Lord now in the presence of all his peo- 
ple.”’ May he descend in the fullness of his real presence, 
and let us all feel that the world is not to-day orphaned of 
a God! Amen. . 


XUV 
NICODEMUS: THE SEEKER AFTER RELIGION. 


CHAPIN. 


{Epwin Huspett Cuarprin, D.D., by eloquence of thought, imagina- 
tion and language ranking among the foremost preachers and lecturers 
of America, was born in Union Village, Washington county, New 
York, in 1814. After a ministry of several years in Charlestown, 
Massachusetts, he was called to his present pastorate over the Fourth 
Universalist Church, New York City. He is the author of many vol- 
umes of Sermons, all of which are deservedly popular. These com- 
prise: ‘‘Crown of Thorns;” “ Discourses on the Lord’s Prayer;” 
“Duties of Young Men;” “ Duties of Young Women ;” “ Providence 
and Life ;” “‘Characters in the Gospels.’’ Our extract is made by 
permission from the last named. | 


“ There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the 
Jews: The same came to Jesus by night.’’—John iii. 1, 2. 


ALTHOUGH we have but few glimpses of Nicodemus in the 
Gospels, he is a personage of peculiar interest. A Pharisee, 
and a member of the great Jewish Senate, or Sanhedrin, he 
shows us that the influence of Christ was not limited to the 
poor and the obscure; but that, while his Words and Works 
awoke enmity and fear among the higher classes, they struck, 
in the breasts of some of these, a holier chord. 

It may not be certain that Nicodemus ever openly con- 
fessed Christ; yet, in this chapter, he appears in the atti- 
tude of a disciple, and we find him defending Jesus before 
the Sanhedrin, and assisting at his burial. Still, unless the 
last-mentioned act be considered as such, we do not discover, 
in his conduct, that public and decisive acknowledgment 
which the Saviour required; we do not behold the frank 
avowal of Peter, or the intrepidity of Paul. There is an 


air of caution and of timidity about him. He carefully feels 
(732) 


NICODEMUS: THE SEEKER AFTER RELIGION. 733 


the ground of innovation, before he lets go the establish- 
ment; and, indeed, he appears to have taken no step by 
which he forfeited his caste or his office. It is difficult, too, 
to discover the precise purpose of this visit to Jesus. Per- 
haps he sought the interview from mixed motives. A reli- 
gious earnestness, kindled by the teachings and the character 
of Christ, may have blended with speculative curiosity, and 
even with the throbbings of political ambition. His coming 
by night, too, may have indicated timidity, or he may have 
chosen that season as the best time for quiet and uninter- 
rupted discourse. But, whatever may have been his motives, 
the position in which we find him shows, I repeat, that the 
power of Christ’s ministry was felt, not only by the excita- 
ble multitude, but by the more thoughtful and devout of the 
Jewish people. 

Nicodemus, however, presents a peculiar interest, not only 
because he exhibits the influence of Jesus upon the higher 
orders of his nation, but because he appears as a Seeker 
after Religion, and as one personally interested in its vital 
truths. His interview with the Saviour, gives occasion for 
one of the most important passages in the New Testament. 
The conversation of Christ, in this instance, is not uttered 
in general principles and accommodated to the multitude, but 
it is directed to an intelligent and inquiring spirit, in the 
calm privacy of the night-time, laying bare its very depths, 
and craving the application of religion to its own peculiar 
wants. To be sure, Nicodemus did not profess this want, 
but commenced the conversation with the language of respect, 
and with suggestion of more general inquiry. But he who 
‘¢knew what was in man,” had already penetrated the folds 
of the Ruler’s breast, and saw the real need that had sent 
him; so, putting by all compliments, and all secondary 
issues, he struck at once the conscious chord that throbbed 
there, and exclaimed: ‘“ Verily, verily, I say unto thee, ex- 
cept a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of 


134 EDWIN H, CHAPIN. 


God!” There words must have filled Nicodemus with sur- 
prise, both from their sudden heart-searchingness, and as 
addressing to him a term which was usually applied to men 
of very different condition. For the phrase, “new birth,” 
was a customary one to express the change through which 
the Gentile passed in becoming a Jew. But it was indeed 
a strange doctrine that he, a son of Abraham, a Pharisee, a 
Ruler, must be born again, before he could be fit for the 
Messiah’s kingdom. Therefore, really or affectedly, he mis- 
understood the Saviour’s words, and gave to a phrase, plain 
enough when applied to a heathen, the most gross and literal 
interpretation. But Christ reiterated the solemn truth, 
assuring him that an ¢nward change, and an outward profes- 
sion, a regeneration of the affections and the will, and a 
renunciation of pride and fear, by the symbol of baptism—a 
new birth of water and of the Spirit—was essential to true 
- discipleship. And thus, stripping away all the reliances of 
formal righteousness, and all the supports of birth and posi- 
tion, in reply to the earnest question of Nicodemus: ‘ How 
can these things be?” the great Teacher proceeded to utter 
some of the sublimest doctrines of the Gospel. As I have 
already said, whether Nicodemus became an avowed follower 
of Jesus, or not, is uncertain; but we know that the truths 
which he then heard are of everlasting importance, have a 
personal application to every man, and appeal to wants in 
our own souls, which are as real and as deep as those of the 
Ruler of old. 

But while thus Nicodemus exhibits a need of our common 
humanity, he especially represents a class who may be called 
“Seekers after Religion,” either as being unsettled and in- 
quiring in their spirits, or as resting upon something which is 
not Religion, but only, perhaps, a tendency toward it—they 
are seekers after it, as not having actually found it. In 
other words, for this class, Religion has its meaning and its 
pressure ; they think about it, and they feel its claims, yet 


NICODEMUS: THE SEEKER AFTER RELIGION. 735 


they do not thoroughly and mentally know it; or, like Nico- 
demus, they rest upon some’ substitute. Some of these posi- 
tions I propose now to illustrate. 

I obferve, then, in the first place, that some seek Religion 
in Fituals and Sacraments. The tendency of the human 
mind, as to matters of faith and devotion, has always been 
to complicate rather than to simplify, and to associate these 
with set forms and symbols. In all ages, men have shrunk 
from naked communion with God, from the solitude of an 
intense spirituality, and have conducted transactions with 
the Invisible, through the mediation of ceremony. But that 
which, at first, was an expression of the individual soul, has 
grown into a fixed and consecrated Rite. Gestures and 
modes of worship, suggested by the occasion, have been 
repeated in usage, and grown venerable with age, until they 
have become identified with Religion itself. They have been 
exalted into mystic vehicles of Grace, have been considered 
as possessing virtue in themselves, and as constituting an 
awful paraphernalia, through which, alone, God will deign 
to communicate with man, and through which than may even 
propitiate and move God. Christianity has not escaped this 
tendency; and, even now, there are many with whom the 
Sacraments are something more than expressive signs and 
holy suggestions, and with whom the position of an altar, 
the shape of a vestment, and the form of a church are among 
the essentials of Religion. With such, Baptism speaks, not 
merely to the eye of an inward washing, but it is of itself a 
regenerative process. In their view, the Communion Bread 
is not simply a representation of the broken body of the 
Redeemer; but is itself so sacred, so identical with that 
body, that they must receive it by a special posture, and 
upon a particular part of the hand. As a matter of course, 
to such, Religion must appear eminently conservative and 
retrospective; the genius of the established and the past, 
rather than of the reformatory and the future. Cherishing 


736 EDWIN H,. CHAPIN. 


the minutest fibres of these ancient rites, they chiefly vene- 
rate the men who authenticate them, and the soil out of 
which they grow. With them, the fluent spirit of Religion 
became organized and fixed into a form, with fast-days and 
feast-days, with mitre and cassock, and a lineal priesthood, 
ages ago. 

It cannot be said that this method is entirely unfounded. 
It has its justification in human nature, if not elsewhere. 
There are those who can find peace only in the arms of an | 
hereditary Faith: who can feel the inspiration of worship 
only among forms that have kindled worship in others for a 
thousand years: with whose earliest thoughts and dearest 
memories is entwined a Ritual and an Established Church, 
so that personal affection and household sanctity, as well as 
religious feeling, demand that every great act of life—of joy 
or sorrow—should be consecrated by the familiar sacrament. 
.For that church, too, their fathers have died in darker times, 
and beneath its chancels, sainted mothers moulder into dust. 
All, too, that can exalt the ideal, or wake the pulses of elo- 
quent emotion, is connected with such a church. To them 
it opens a traditional perspective, the grandest in all history. 
Behind its altars, sweep the vestments of centuries of priests, 
and rises- the incense of centuries of prayer. In its stony 
niches, stand rows of saints, who have made human life sub- 
lime, and who, through all the passing ages, look down upon 
the turmoil of that life with the calm beatitude of heaven ; 
while its flushed windows still keep the blood-stain of its own 
martyrs, plashed agaist it ere yet it had become an anchored 
fact, and while it tossed upon the stormy waves of persecution. 
I can understand, then, how an imaginative and reverential 
mind can find the truest religious life only in connection with 
Ritual and Sacrament. 

I can understand, moreover, the reaction in this direction, 
which is taking place at the present day. It is the retreat 
of the Religious sentiments from the despotism of an impe- 


NICODEMUS: THE SEEKER AFTER RELIGION. Par 


rious reason. It is the counter-protest of loyal affections 
against what. is deemed an anarchical tendency. It is the 
clinging of men’s sympathies to the concrete, alarmed by the 
irreverent and analytic methods of science. It is the retire- 
ment of faith and devotion to those cloistered sanctities that 
shut out the noise of the populace, and the diversions of the 
street. It is the reluctance of taste and imagination at our 
new and varnished Protestantism, with its bare walls, its cold 
services, and its angular churches, of which one wing, per- 
chance, rests upon a market, and the other upon a dram-shop. 
Especially would I not deny the profound spiritual life, the 
self-sacrifice, and the beautiful charities which have consisted 
at all times, and which consist in the present time, with this - 
Ritual and Sacramental form of Religion. 

But when men claim that this alone is the genuine form— 
that these are essentials of the only true Church—then I 
deny that claim. If it fills some wants of our nature, it 
repudiates others equally authentic. If one class of minds 
find peace only under its consecrated shadows, others find 
no satisfaction but in the discipline of a spontaneous devo- 
tion, and the exercise of an individual reason. If it suffices 
for men like Borromeo or Newman, it does not suffice for 
men like George Fox or Channing; and the religion of these 
is as evident, in their simple spirituality, as of those in their 
mystic symbolism. When it sneers at the Puritan, then I 
must vindicate that rugged independence of soul, that faith- 
fulness to the individual conscience, that sense of the Divine 
Sovereignty, which could kneel at no man’s altar, and to 
God alone; which sacrificed all things for the right, but 
yielded not a hair to the wrong; which could find no medi- 
cine for the spirit in Sacraments, but only in the solitude of 
the inner life; and which has, under God, wrought out this 
noble consummation of modern times, whereby others may 
plant their vine of ritual under the broad heaven of tolera- 
tion, and have liberty to sneer. When the Ritualist depre- 

24 3A 


738 EDWIN H. CHAPIN. 


cates the ultraism and irreverence of the Anti-formalist, I 
must urge the tendency of his own principles to mummery 
and absolutism. And, finally, when he falls back upon Tra- 
dition, I must fall back upon the Bible. The spirit of the 
New Testament is not that of Rituals or Sacraments; and 
the universal sentiments of the Old are not. The prophet 
Isaiah, who exclaims: ‘‘ Bring no more vain oblations; in- 
cense is an abomination unto me; your new moons, and your 
appointed feasts, my soul hateth . .... Wash you, make 
youreleant sa Aeeu. cease to do evil, learn to do well!” joins 
with the Apostle, who says that Christ “blotted out the 
handwriting of ordinances ... . . nailing it to his cross,” 
and that no man should judge usan meat or drink, or times, 
or seasons. And, surely, there is no argument for forms or 
places in those Divine Words, which declare that ‘God is 
a Spirit, and they who worship Him, must worship Him in 
. Spirit and in truth.” : 

We cannot deny, then, that pure religion may consist with 
Rituals and Sacraments; we cannot deny that it may exist 
without these. But I insist upon this point: that the Sacra- 
ment, the Ritual, is not, itself, Religion. It may bea beautiful 
sign—it may be a quick suggestion—it may be a medium 
of spiritual influence; but, alone, it cannot take the place 
of inward, personal piety, of right affections, and an obe- 
dient will. No punctilious form can stand substitute for a 
vigilant conscience; no posture of devotion can supply the 
place of living deeds; no ascetic mortification can atone for 
guilt ; no auricular confession can speak, instead of the 
breathings of repentance, in the ear of God, and out from 
the depths of the solitary soul. He who relies upon these 
forms, and finds sanctity only in them, may be sincere, may 
be serious about religion, but as yet he is only a Seeker ; 
and, speaking to his heart with all-penetrating meaning, 
comes to him the decree: “ Ye must be born again.” 

Again; there is a class who seek Religion in Philosophy. 


NICODEMUS: THE SEEKER AFTER RELIGION. 739 


They believe in God by a course of reasoning. They believe 
in immortality, because it is a conclusion riveted in their 
minds by the iron links of induction. They pray, or not, 
according as it seems logical to do so. They would be good, 
because goodness is useful. But every proposition upon 
which they act, must first be strained through the alembic 
of the intellect, and must stand out in the clear definition 
of science. ‘They verify and build up their religion with 
callipers and dissecting-knife. It is a system of digestion 
and pneumatology. They find an organ for veneration, and 
another for conscientiousness, and therefore conclude that 
religion has a legitimate place in the harmony of human 
character. But all must-be calm and balanced. They dare 
not trust the feelings, and give but little scope to enthusiasm. 
Sometimes, indeed, they rise to eloquence in expatiating 
upon the truths of natural theology, and of ‘the elder 
scripture ;’’ though they believe in Christ also, because he 
seems well authenticated as an historical Fact. In short, 
such men are religious like Cicero, or Seneca, with some 
modification from modern science, and from the Sermon on 
the Mount. 

Now there is a close alliance between true Philosophy and 
true Religion. That the New Testament is eminently free 
from fanaticism, and makes no appeal to mere credulity, any 
one will see who examines. That it is rational and sober, 
constitutes one of its great internal evidences. A Christian 
Philosopher is no anomaly, but a beautiful expression of 
the essential harmony of all truth. Knowledge and Piety 
burn and brighten with an undivided flame. Revelation and 
Science are continually interpreting one another, while every 
day the material universe is unfolding a more spiritual sig- 
nificance, and indicating its subservience to a spiritual end. 
But, after all, in order to be religious, it is not necessary 
that a man should be a philosopher, and it is certain that 
often he is a philosopher without being religious. Religion 


740 EDWIN H. CHAPIN. 


and Philosophy may coalesce, but they are two different 
spheres. Philosophy is out-looking and speculative; Re- 
ligion is inner and vital. In the scheme of Philosophy, 
Religion is reasoned out as a consequence, and adopted as 
an appendage to character. In the true scheme, it is the 
central germ of our being, the controlling force of life. The 
religion of Philosophy consists of right views of things, and 
a prudential schooling of the passions. True Religion 
consists in a right state of the affections, and a renun- 
ciation of self. In the one case, Religion may ‘ play round 
the head, but come not near the heart; in the other, 
it breaks up the great deep of conscience, and pours an in- 
tense light upon the springs of motive. Philosophy contains 
the idea of intellectual rectitude; Religion, of moral obe- 
dience. Philosophy speaks of virtue; Religion, of holiness. 
Philosophy rests upon development; Religion requires re- 
generation. In short, we make an every-day distinction 
between the two, which is far more significant than any 
verbal contrast. It is the one, rather than the other, that 
we apply, in the profounder experiences of our moral nature, 
in the consciousness of sin, and in the overwhelming calami- 
ties of life. The one pours a purifying, healing, up-lifting 
power into the homes of human suffering, and into the hearts 
of the ignorant and the poor, that the other has not to be- 
stow. Philosophy is well, under all circumstances; but it is 
not the most inner element of our humanity. Religion, in 
its humility, penitence, and faith—at the foot of the cross, 
and by the open sepulchre—rejoices in a direct and practical 
vision, to which Philosophy, with its encyclopedia and tele; 
scope, cannot attain. 

Under this head, too, may be ranked a class of men who, 
though they may not be exactly philosophers, fall into the 
same conception of Religion, as a matter of the intellect— 
as the possession of correct views—rather than a profound 
moral life. They estimate men according to what they be- 


NICODEMUS: THE SEEKER AFTER RELIGION. Ta 


lieve, and attribute the same sanctity to the Creed that others 
attribute to the Ritual. And as Religion, in their concep- 
tion of it, consists in a series of correct opinions, the great 
work should be an endeavor to make men think right. So 
the pulpit should be an arsenal of controversial forces, inces- 
santly playing upon the ramparts of dogmatic error, with — 
the artillery of dogmatic truth, and for ever hammering the 
same doctrinal monotony upon the anvils of logic and of 
textual interpretation. They are satisfied if some favorite 
tenet is proved to a demonstration, and go forth rejoicing in 
the superiority of their “‘ views,” without asking if Saving 
Love has melted and transfigured their own hearts, or whether 
personal sin may not canker in their souls, if hereditary guilt 
is not there. Now, it is true that great principles lie at the 
foundation of all practical life, and the more elevated and 
clear our views, the more effectual are the motives to holi- 
ness and love. But it matters little to what pole of doctrine 
the intellect swings, if the heart hangs unpenetrated and un- 
touched. It matters little to what opinions in Theology the 
pulpit has made converts, if all its mighty truths have not 
heaved the moral nature of the hearer—if it has not shot 
into the individual soul, like an arrow, the keen coriviction: 
““T must be born again!” 

Once more: there are those who seek Religion in a routine 
of outward and commendable deeds—in mere morality. With 
such, the great sum of life is to be sober, chaste, humane ; 
laying particular stress upon the business-virtues, honesty, 
industry, and prudence. In their idea, that man is a reli- 
gious man who is an upright dealer, an orderly citizen, a 
good neighbor, and a charitable giver. To be religious, 
means to do good, to keep your promises, and mind your 
own business. They tell us that benevolence is the richest 
offering, and that the truest worship is in the workshop and 
the field—that a man prays when he drives a nail or ploughs 
a furrow, and that he expresses the best thanksgiving when 


742 EDWIN H. CHAPIN. 


he enjoys what he has got, and is content if he gets no 
more. 

Now, the world is not so bad that there is not a good deal 
of this kind of religion in it. It would be unjust to deny 
that many golden threads of integrity wind through the 
fabric of labor; that there is a strong nerve of rectitude 
holding together the transactions of daily life, and a wealth 
of spontaneous kindness enriching its darker and more ter- 
rible scenes. 

But, after all, these easy sympathies, and these prudential 
virtues, lack the radicalness of true Religion. Religion can- 
not exist without morality; but there is a formal morality 
which exists without religion. I say, a formal morality; for 
essential morality and essential Religion are as inseparable 
as the sap and the fruit. Nor is morality a mere segment 
of religion. It is one-half of it. Nay, when we get at 
_ absolute definitions, the two terms may be used interchange- 
ably; for then we consider religion presenting its earthly 
and social phase, and we consider morality with its axis 
turned heavenward. But, in the case of these outside vir- 
tues, which are so common, we behold only one-half of reli- 
gion, and that is its earthly and social form; and even this 
lacks the root and sanction of true morality. For the differ- 
ence between the morality of a religious man and that of 
another, consists in this: with the one, morality bears the 
sanctions of an absolute law, and God is at its centre. It 
is wrought out by discipline, and maintained at all cost. 
With the other, it is an affair of temperament, and educa- 
tion, and social position. He has received it as a custom, 
and adopted it as a policy; or he acts upon it as an impulse. 
With the one, it is a matter of profit and loss, or a fitful 
whim of sentiment. With the other, it is the voice of a 
divine oracle within, that must be obeyed; it is the conse- 
crated method of duty, and the inspiration of prayer. Now, 
to say that it makes no difference about the motive of an 


NICODEMUS: THE SEEKER AFTER RELIGION. 143 


act, so long as the act itself is good, indicates that very lack 
of right feeling, and right perception, which confounds the 
formal morality of the world with religion. or, in the dis- 
tinctions of the Christian System, the motive makes the deed 
good or bad; makes the two mites richer than all the rest 
of the money in the treasury; makes the man who hates his 
brother a murderer. ‘The good action may bless others, but 
if I do not perform it from a right motive, it does not bless 
me; and the essential peculiarity of religion is, that it 
regards inward development, individual purity, personal 
holiness—so that one essential excellence of the good deed 
consists in its effect upon the agent—consists in the sinews 
which it lends to his moral power, and the quantity it adds 
to his spiritual life. When, from a right motive, with effort 
and sacrifice, I help a weak and poor’ man, I enrich my indi- 
vidual and spiritual being. If I bestow from a mere gush 
of feeling, I receive no permanent spiritual benefit; if from 
a bad motive, I impoverish my own heart. Acts, then, which 
appear the same thing in form, differ widely, considered in 
their religious bearings. ‘There is the morality of impulse, 
the morality of selfishness, and the morality of principle, or 

religious morality. The motive of the first-named, we obey } 
instantaneously, and it may do good, just as we draw our 
hands from the flame, and thereby obey a law of our physi- 
cal nature, though we act without any consideration of that 
law. A great deal of the morality in the world is of this 
kind. It may do good, but has no reference to the law of 
rectitude. It is impulsive, and, therefore, does not indicate 
a steadfast virtue, or a deep religious life. For the very 
impulsiveness that leads to the gratification of the sympa- 
thies, leads to the gratification of the appetites, and thus we 
often find generous and benevolent characteristics mixed 
with vicious conduct. Then, as I have said, there is: the 
morality of selfishness. In this instance, I may perform 
many good actions from sheer calculation of material profit. 


744 EDWIN H. CHAPIN. 


I may be benevolent, because it will increase my reputation 
for philanthropy. I may be honest, because ‘honesty is 
the best policy.’ But is this the highest, the religious sanc- 
tion of morality? No: the morality of the religious man 
is the morality of principle. The motive in his case is not 
“‘T will,” or “I had better,” but “I ought.” He recognises 
morality as a law, impersonal, over-mastering the dictates 
of mere self, and holding all impulses in subservience to the 
highest good. The morality of impulse is uncertain. The 
morality of policy is mean and selfish. The morality of 
religion is loyal, disinterested, self-sacrificing. It acts from 
faith in God, and with reference to God. 

But another trait separates the religious from the merely 
formal moralist. It consists in the fact that with him, 
‘morality,’ as we commonly employ the term, is not all. 
Piety has its place. His affections not only flow earthward, 
but turn heavenward. He not only loves his neighbor as 
himself, but he loves the Lord his God. He not only visits 
the widows and the fatherless in their affliction, but he keeps 
himself unspotted from the world. With him, toil zs prayer, 
and contentment zs thanksgiving, but because he infuses into 
them a spirit of devotion, which he has cultivated by more 
solitary and special acts. With him it 7s a good thing to 
live honestly, industriously, soberly ; but all life is not out- 
ward, is not in traffic and labor, and meat and drink. There 
is an inward world, to which his eyes are often introverted— 
a world of spiritual experience, of great realities, and ever- 
lasting sanctions—a world behind the veil—a holy of holies 
in his soul, where rests the Shecinah of God’s more imme- 
diate presence; yea, where he meets God face to face. And 
it is this that directs his public conduct. The orderly and 
beautiful method of his life is not the huddled chance-work 
of good impulses, is not the arithmetic of selfishness; but 
it is a serene and steady plan of being projected from the 
communion of the oratory, and the meditation of the closet. 


NICODEMUS: THE SEEKER AFTER RELIGION. 745 


Again, I say, let us not depreciate morality. Let us con- 
demn that ostentatious piety which lifts up holy hands to 
God, but never stretches them out to help man—which 
anoints its head with the oil of sanctity, but will not defile 
its robes with the blood of the abused, or the contact of the 
guilty—-which is loud in profession and poor in perform- 
ance—which makes long prayers, but devours widows’ 
houses. Let us condemn this, but remember that this is 
not real religion, only its form; as often, the kind deed, the 
honest method, is not true morality, only its form. Of both 
these departments of action, let it be said: that these we 
have done, and not left the other undone. Let us recognise 
the perfect harmony, nay, the identity of religion and mo- 
rality, in that One who came from the solitary conflict of the 
desert, to go about doing good, and who descended, from the 
night-prayer on the mountain, to walk and calm the troubled ° 
waves of the sea. | 

But those who rest in a mere routine of kind and pru- 
dential deeds, need the deeper life and the inner perception 
which detects the meaning and gives the sanction to those 
deeds. Such need the vital germ of morality—the changed 
heart, the new birth. 

And as I have spoken of a subordinate yet somewhat 
distinct class who may be ranked under the general head 
of seekers after religion in philosophy, let me here briefly 
allude to some with whom religion is a matter of mere senti- 
ment and good feeling. Such are easily moved by the great 
doctrines of the New Testament. They are affected by the 
sermon; they have gushes of devout emotion during the 
prayer. But with them, religion is not a deep and steady 
pulse of divine life. Prayer is not a protracted aspiration— 
is not a habit. They feel well towards God, because they 
consider him a good-natured, complacent Being; but tliey 
do not meditate upon the majesty of His Nature, upon His 
Justice, and His Holiness. From the doctrine of immor- 


746 EDWIN H. CHAPIN. 


tality they draw consolation, but not sanctity. They regard 
it as a good time coming, but it furnishes them with no per- 
sonal and stringent applications for the present. They need 
a more solemn and penetrating vision; a profounder expe- 
rience in the soul. They need to be born again. 

Then, again, there are those who may he called amateurs 
in religion. That is, they are curious about religious things. 
They like to speculate about it, to argue upon its doctrines, 
and to broach or examine new theories. They go about from 
sect to sect, and from church to church, tasting what is novel 
in the reasoning, or pleasing in the manner of the preacher ; 
in one place to-day to hear an orator; in another to-morrow 
to hear a latter-day saint; it is all the same thing to them. 
All they want with religion is entertainment and excitement. 
They are Athenians, ever seeking some new thing. They 
smack at a fresh heresy as if they were opening a box of 
figs, and are as delighted with a controversy, as a boy with 
a sham-fight. They have no fixed place in the Church uni- 
versal. They are liberalists, without any serious convictions, 
and cosmopolites without any home affections. In fact, to 
them religion is a sham-fight—a matter of spectacle and 
zest—not a personal interest, or an inward life. They would 
seek Jesus by night, because they hope to learn something 
wonderful or new, and would be startled to hear his solemn 
words tingling in their hearts: ‘Ye must be born again !” 

Nay, my friends, would not these solemn words startle 
many of us? It may be, we have never made any inquiry 
concerning religion—have never even come to Jesus, as it 
were, by night. Such, with their barks of being drifting 
down the stream of time, have never asked the meaning of 
their voyage, or reckoned their course; nay, perhaps they 
live as though religion were a fable, as though earth were 
our permanent abiding-place, and heaven a dream. If such 
there are, they have not even listened to the Saviour’s words. 
But there are others among us, perhaps, who are interested 


‘ 
NICODEMUS: THE SEEKER AFTER RELIGION. TL 


in the subject of religion, who are in some way or another 
engaged in it; but who are restless seekers after it, rather 
than actual possessors of it; who are resting upon insufficient 
substitutes for it. And I ask, would not these words, break- 
ing forth from the lips of Jesus, startle us in our ritualism, 
our philosophy, our outside morality, our sentimentalism, or 
our mere curiosity? And do they not speak to us? Are 
they not as true now as when they struck upon the shivering 
ear of Nicodemus? Do they not make us feel as intensely 
our obligation and our religious want, as he might have felt 
there, with the wind flitting by him as though the Holy 
Spirit were touching him with its appeal, and with the calm 
gaze of the Saviour looking into his heart? Do they not 
demand of us, resting here awhile from the cares and labors 
of the world, something more than mere conformity, or in- 
tellectual belief, or formal deeds? Do they not demand a 
new and better spirit, a personal apprehension of the reli- 
gious life, a breaking up and regeneration of our moral 
nature, a change of heart ? 


| XLVIIL. 
UNSEARCHABLENESS OF GOD’S THOUGHTS. 


POTTER. 


[Atonzo Porrsr, D. D., LL. D., was a great and godly divine, whose 
life was full of sanctified labors for the good of humanity. An emi- 
nent educator for more than twenty years, he did much to reform the 
systems of collegiate and common-school instruction. A Christian 
philanthropist, he inaugurated numerous ‘‘ Young Men’s Associa- 
tions,” to give literary and moral entertainment to those otherwise 
beguiled into dissolute conduct. A diocesan of rare executive abili- 
ties and catholicity of heart, his imperishable works attest his zeal for 
his Master. He was born the son of a Quaker farmer, in the town of 
Beekman, (now La Grange), Dutchess county, New York, July 6th 
1800. Before his nineteenth year, he graduated with the highest 
honors from Union College, having as classmates Francis Wayland 
. and William H. Seward. In 1826 he became rector of St. Paul’s 
Church, Boston. For health’s sake after five years’ exhausting labors, 
he accepted the vice-presidency of Union College, with the professor- 
ship of intellectual and moral philosophy, and political economy. His 
culture was broad and profound, so systematized and digested as to be 
always available. After declining several calls to the episcopate, Dr. 
Potter was consecrated (P. E.) Bishop of the Diocese of Pennsylvania, 
September 23d 1845. He died, universally lamented, at San Fran- 
cisco, July 4th 1865. Among his works are, a series of sixty ‘‘ Lowell 
Lectures,”’ on Natural Theology and Christian Evidences; ‘ Charges 
and Discourses,’ ‘‘Hand-Book for Readers and Students; and the 
edited ‘“‘ Memorial Papers,” one of whose principles was ‘‘ to aid more 
effectually in restoring outward unity and the spirit of true brother- 
hood among those who name the name of Christ.”’” Rev. Dr. Howe has 
written appreciative ‘‘ Memoirs.” This Sermon, now first printed, 
appears by the kindness of his son Dr. Henry C. Potter, of Grace 
Church, New York. | 


“ My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, 
saith the Lord.’’——-Isaiah ly. 8. 


Nor can they be. Thoughts that are revolved by an In- 


finite and Eternal Mind cannot be grasped by one that is 
(748) 


UNSEARCHABLENESS OF GOD'S THOUGHTS. 749 


finite. The child does not comprehend the thoughts 
expressed, nor the actions performed, even by his parent. 
The peasant cannot understand the discoveries of the 
philosopher, nor the subject fathom the designs, even though 
announced, of his prince. And can man then, the creature 
of to-day, whose view is confined to the present place and 
the present moment; who can arrive at most truth only 
through a laborious process of induction; whose mind is not 
only circumscribed to a narrow sphere, but frail and fallible 
when operating there—can he think to track those counsels 
which are from everlasting to everlasting; which extend 
from one to another end of God’s universe; which are con- 
nected with an infinitude of different and distant objects; 
and which are to be fully developed only by the revolution 
of eternal ages? Oh! when standing before such a Being; 
when looking forth on that dark immense where his thoughts 
expatiate; when gazing on those judgments of His which 
are unsearchable, those ways which are past finding out; 
when seeing how little distance our bedimmed and feeble eye 
has penetrated, or can penetrate; oh! then the words of 
the text rise spontaneously to our lips: “‘ Thy thoughts, O 
God, ave not our thoughts, neither are our ways thy ways.”’ 

Wherever we look, in every stage of our being, this, if 
we are wise, will be our language. 

Are we directing our view, for example, to the Book or 
Nature? Here, indeed, is much that is legible, much that 
proclaims the wisdom and might of its Author.. His eternal 
power and Godhead shine resplendent in those Heavens 
above. His never-failing beneficence is reflected from every 
beauty and bounty of earth. Day unto day uttereth speech, 
and night unto night showeth knowledge. Not a page or 
line, but it contains some new disclosure of Divine glory ; 
yet not a page or line, but it bespeaks, at the same time, 
the immensity of God and the ignorance of man. The 
more we learn even of nature, the less we seem to know. 


750 ALONZO POTTER. 


So many difficulties occur at every step; so many things to 
disappoint our preconceptions, and give us presage of still — 
“greater disappointment yet to come; so many truths which © 
elude our view by their subtilty, or defy our comprehension 
by their vastness; so many facts seen to exist, and yet 
irreconcilable by us with other facts equally certain: so 
much there is of this as to demonstrate that if a man 
thinketh he knoweth anything perfectly, he knoweth nothing 
yet as he ought to know. 

With every event there are connected questions which no 
science has solved, and which all admit no human science 
can solve. If as we advance one mystery disappears, it is 
only to give place to another. We catch now a new glimpse 
of our Creator to awaken our reverence, and now a new 
view of our ignorance to confound our pride. Alps rise 
o'er Alps. As we mount upward our view may enlarge, but 
it is only to disclose points of prospect that communicate 
with regions yet more distant and invisible. And no matter 
how lofty be our ascent, to humble our self-confidence, to 
stimulate our thirst for knowledge and deepen our faith and 
trust, God still shrouds Himself in clouds and darkness; 
still calls us to bow down in wonder and adoration, and to 
acknowledge that His thoughts are not our thoughts, nor His 
ways our ways. 

And so again if we turn to the Book or PROVIDENCE. 
Here, also, is abundant testimony to the glory of God. 
When we observe the connection usually subsisting between 
virtue and happiness on the one hand, and vice and misery 
on the other, we feel assured that the Judge of all the 
Karth is righteous! When we look again at rains and fruit- 
ful seasons replenishing the stores, and making glad the 
hearts of men; when we consider with what wonderful 
skill God has adapted the objects around us to the promo- 
tion of our happiness, and the improvement of our souls: 
all this proclaims that He is good as well as righteous, and 
wise as well as good. But then we have no sooner perused 


UNSEARCHABLENESS OF GODS THOUGHTS. 751 


these animating and momentous lessons; we have no sooner 
begun to think that we know something of the counsels of 
our Creator, and to be inflated with pride at the thought, 
than a scene opens to level that pride to the dust. We take 
a wider view, and behold! moral evil presents itself. Yes, 
on this earth placed under the sway of One—Himself too 
holy to look upon sin and sinners with the least forbearance 
—subject entirely to His control—peopled by beings whom 
He loves as the apple of His eye—on this earth does sin 
enter. It comes! and with it come discord, oppression, dis- 
ease, and death. Here they now reign and riot in all their 
horror: multitudes unnumbered, capable of the highest 
virtue and felicity, are here, beneath the immediate eye of 
God, pining under sickness, or scourged by tyranny, or 
abandoned to sin and sinking to everlasting woe; when had 
He—as we sometimes presumptuously think—had He inter- 
posed, they would have remained for ever innocent and 
happy. And yet He interposed not. ‘Though His own glory 
seemed to demand it, though mercy seemed to plead in 
terms of unutterable energy; though He could forfeit, as 
we sometimes presume to think, no conceivable good, while 
He would have averted all possible evil, still He interposed 
not, and man is now left a prey to suffering and sin and 
death! And yet who doubts that the Almighty is good, 
and that His tender mercies are over all his work? For this 
and a thousand similar facts, there is but one solution. It 
is this: “His thoughts are not our thoughts, neither are 
our ways his ways.” As high as Heaven is above the earth, 
so high are His ways above our ways, and His thoughts 
above our thoughts. 

Be this, then, our consolation in the day of trial; be this 
our resource when all is dark before us; when God seems 
to clothe Himself in anger; when He visits us with the most 
desolating trials, and all things seem to be against us; when, 
for example, He plucks away some treasure which leaves us 
poor indeed, while its removal can subserve (as our murmur- 


752 ALONZO POTTER. 


ing hearts would whisper) no useful purpose; when death 
comes forth from his hiding-place, and selecting from among 
our friends some shining mark, some being distinguished 
alike for usefulness and loveliness and worth, snatches him 
from the circle which he blesses and adorns; or when public 
disaster broods over or falls upon us; when war, or pesti- 
lence, or anarchy collect, like a black cloud, on our horizon, 
and seem to impend universal ruin and desolation; or 
finally, when that dark cloud pours its gathered wrath upon 
our heads, and there seems to remain before the eye of 
unaided man no way of escape:—Oh! at that hour how 
does faith hang out a bow of hope, in these words of the 
Most High: ‘My thoughts are not your thoughts.” ‘ To 
you all seems disastrous. But you know not My counsels, 
neither understand ye My thoughts. Fear not, then, though 
clouds and darkness are round about My throne, for justice 
_ and judgment are its seat and habitation. Fear not though 
my displeasure seems to burn with fierceness; for to the 
contrite and humble My compassions cannot fail.’”’ Man is 
ignorant and fallible. God alone is all-wise and all-gracious. 
He can bring light out of darkness, and order out of con- 
fusion; and He will doit. ‘Yea, tHt LorD REIGNETH ! 
let the Earth rejoice; let the multitude of the isles be glad 
thereof.” ' 

But finally, let us turn to the Book or REVELATION. 
Here we see yet plainer indications of Divine goodness and 
grandeur. Truths which Nature and Providence have left 
unnoticed, or but obscurely intimated, are here explicitly 
declared. But because the Bible reveals these truths, it by 
no means follows that there is nothing which it does not 
reveal. It does not follow that there are no vestiges of 
darkness and mystery to be found even on its sacred pages. 
When in the systems of nature and Providence every truth, 
either in itself or in its relations, is encumbered with diffi- 
culty, can it be supposed that in the system of Revelation 
this is the case with no truth? Where then would be the 


UNSEARCHABLENESS OF GOD'S THOUGHTS. 753 


analogy between these several systems? The same God is | 
the author of them all. This God we know must act— 
uniformly—like Himself. But if, while in the one. case He 
has found it necessary in itself, or profitable for us, to sur- 
round every truth with darkness and mystery, He has in 
another case dispensed with all darkness and all mystery, 
under such circumstances where would this uniformity be 
found? And we may ask farther, How is this possible? 
How can that which forms part of the counsels of an Infinite 
and Hternal mind be comprehended thoroughly in all its 
relations by one who is merely finite ? 

Ah, beloved! in the Bible not less than elsewhere there 
must be much to remind us of our ignorance and imbecility. 
Many a cloud, it is true, is dispersed. Life and immortality 
are brought to light! A way in which God can be just and 
yet justify the sinner, is revealed. Inexpressible lustre is 
thrown over the holiness and clemency and wisdom of God. 
But then, as in the works of Nature and Providence, so here 
—one difficulty disappears only to be replaced by another. 
If life and immortality appear, there appears with them 
that inexplicable fact—the resurrection of the body: the 
fact that these bodies of ours, though they die and dissolve, 
and through their constituent particles unite with other 
bodies, and become even the property of other men; yet, 
still they shall be at the last day resumed by us and be 
resumed in all their substantial identity. So, if a way of 
redemption be opened, it is opened through that mystery of 
godliness—God manifest in the flesh—God in all His infinite 
perfection united with frail mortal, helpless man. And if 
both the Divine holiness and love are glorified in this plan 
of redemption, they are glorified by appointing the innocent 
to suffer for the guilty, the just for the unjust. These facts 
rest on the same foundation. They are attested by the 
same proof; and whoso admits the one cannot philosophically 
reject the other. That philosophers had not foreseen this 

3B 


754 ALONZO POTTER. 


resurrection or incarnation, is no objection to their reality ; 
for neither had they foreseen the discoveries of modern 
science. That their preconceptions are even contradicted 
by these revelations of God, is no objection; for so are they 
contradicted every day by the revelations of human art and 
research. Nay, that they involve incomprehensible mys- 
teries is no objection; for where is there object that does 
not. Thine hairs are all numbered. Each one grows, and 
matures, and falls under the supervision and the command 
of God. But canst thou tell how? Canst thou tell what 
that aliment is which nourishes and sustains them? Canst 
thou tell how it ministers to their increase and support? 
Canst thou tell what determines one to be white and another 
black? Canst thou explain why they become like snow in 


the winter of life; and why one single night of grief and 


anguish is sufficient to silver them over? And dost thou 
complain that these disclosures of the Bible are mysterious ? 
They are mysterious. It is mysterious that the innocent 


Son of God should be allowed to suffer for sinful men. And 


is it not mysterious that the innocent child should suffer for 
the sins of its guilty and profligate parent? It 7s mysterious 


that the Divine Spirit should unite itself with a child of — 
earth! And is it not mysterious that thine own ethereal — 


spirit should join and animate and move those clods thou 
callest thy body? It ds mysterious that from the dust and 
ruins of the sepulchre should arise a body clothed in beauty. 
So is it mysterious that from that seed putrefying and dis- 
solving in the earth, should spring up a plant arrayed in 


more glory than ever was a Solomon, bearing fruit meet for_ 


the banquet of kings. Go and solve the wonders of any— 
the humblest—spire that vegetates in yonder field. Go 
scatter the darkness that enshrouds the minutest pebble that 
rolls beneath thy feet. And when thou hast done that, then 
mayest thou come and murmur that Redemption has its 
wonders, that eternity has its secrets ! 

O man, remember thy imbecility ! God gives thee a little 


at 


UNSEARCHABLENESS OF GODS THOUGHTS. 75D 


light, that thou mayest know thy duty. But he surrounds 
thee with much darkness, that thou mayest know thy depend- 
ence. He rewards thine efforts after knowledge with some 
discoveries, to encourage thee to persevere. He meets them 
with more difficulties, to humble thy vain-glory. He allows 
thee to ascend higher and higher on the Mount of prospect ; 
but he causes the horizon to recede farther and farther from 
thy view. He reminds thee perpetually that thy career is to 
be unending; that thy improvement is to be eternal; that 
thou art to be ever learning, and yet never coming to the 
knowledge of all truth; that as thou must always remain 
finite, so for ever and ever it will be true that thy thoughts 
are not God’s thoughts, nor his ways thy ways. 

Here, then, is a great truth. The human mind is finite. 
To its range a limit has been fixed by God—a boundary, 
ever widening in one sense, but of which He hath still said, 
“Thus far shalt thou come and no farther, and here shall 
thy proud waves be stayed.” To confine itself within this 
limit, is its highest wisdom. To attempt to pass it, is alike 


' folly and guilt: folly, because the attempt must ever end in 


disappointment ; guilt, because it is positive rebellion against 
the decrees of the Most High! That he pointed out this 
limit for the first time distinctly to men; that he defined 
the true end of all knowledge, and the means of its attain- 
ment, was the great merit of the Father of the New Philoso- 
phy; and that his instructions have been followed by his 
successors, is the true secret of those triumphs which have 
been won by modern science. 

Facts—they tell us—are the only proper subject of inquiry, 
and experience or testimony the only proper source of infor- 
mation. Do we devote ourselves to the study of Nature? 
Then we are to inquire, not how it might have been consti- 
tuted, not how it ought to be constituted; but How it zs 
constituted. Dismissing all preconceptions and _ theories, 
and sitting down in the capacity of docile and candid 
observers, we are to ask merely, What are the facts; and 


756 ALONZO POTTER. 


these ascertained by competent testimony, we are to admit. 
them: admit them even though we cannot reconcile them 
with each other; admit them even though we cannot discover 
the hidden springs and energies by which they are produced. 

So when we turn to Providence or Revelation. Do we see 
the apparent disorders and inconsistencies which prevail in 

the moral world? We are not hastily to question the wis- 

dom, or doubt the presence of the Sovereign; but waiting 
till revolving years or ages shall have developed the result, 

we are then to see whether these seeming disorders are not 

all parts of an harmonious plan, and proofs at once of the 

Providence and the rectitude of God. Do we consider the 

plan of Redemption revealed in the Scriptures? We are 

not to inquire whether God might not have devised another. 

We are not to ask too curiously how its parts correspond 

with our preconceptions, or even with each other. We are 

. simply to ask, What saith the Lord? 

In the New Testament, God Himself: professes to explain, 
the way of salvation which He hath opened for sinners. Our 
only business, then, is to peruse that explanation. Does it 
disappoint our expectations? Does it suggest difficulties 
which we cannot solve? We are to remember that God’s 
thoughts are not our thoughts, nor his ways our ways. We 
are to remember that means appearing to us the most inap- 
propriate may be, in truth, those means which of all others 
are the most wisely selected; that the appointments of the 
Most High being parts of an infinite system, must for ever 
baffle the perfect comprehension of finite minds; that as 
yet we are but in the dawn, the twilight, of our being; that 
as our day advances, the darkness which now shrouds many 
an object will clear away; and that at every step we shall 
have occasion to exclaim: ‘O the depth of the riches both 
of the wisdom and knowledge of God!” Marvellous are 
thy works, Lord God Almighty! Just and true are thy 
ways, thou King of Saints! 


LIBRARY 
OF THE 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 


RSS 
Se SS 
eo Sa 
* Ss pane Sa 








DG 4 BD. 
THE PROBLEM OF JOY AND SUFFERING IN LIFE. 


BEECHER, 

[First in popularity among American preachers, reformers, and 
lecturers, is Henry Warp Bercuer, son of the famous Dr. Lyman 
Beecher, and brother to three evangelical ministers. Ile was born at 
Litchfield, Connecticut, January 24th 1813. At the age of twenty-one 
he graduated from Amherst College, and studied theology under his 
father in Lane Seminary, Cincinnati. After a two years’ charge in 
Lawrenceburg, Indiana, and a pastorate of eight years in Indianapolis, 
he was called in 1847 to Plymouth Church, Brooklyn—a body of 
Orthodox Congregationalists. His ‘‘ Lectures to Young Men,” ‘ The 
Star Papers,’’ ‘‘ Norwood,” a novel, and various series of Sermons, are 
familiar to most readers. For several years he has had in preparation 
a “Life of Jesus the Christ.” Besides preaching regularly to the 
largest congregation in this country, Mr. Beecher edits ‘‘ The Christian 
Union,” a leading religious weekly. As a man, he is high-toned, pure- 
hearted, joyous, mirthful, and the embodiment of manliness; as a 
thinker, he is fresh, picturesque, creative, life-giving, and zestful; a 
lover of all the beauties of nature and art, which supply him with 
inexhaustible types of spiritual truths; as a preacher, he is keenly 
sympathetic to all that concerns humanity, thoroughly wide-awake to 
the needs of the Nineteenth century, and in earnest—morally and spir- 
itually, profoundly in earnest, although he may tip one of his keenest 
shafts with a smile. Physically, he has a grand vitality, a necessity 
for his incessant activities. The following Sermon is reprinted by per- 
mission from the second volume of “ Plymouth Pulpit.’’] 


“ Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.” — 
Prov. iii. 3. 

“ In the world ye shall have tribulation ; but be of good cheer: I have 
overcome the world.””—John xvi. 33. 


Tue Old Testament is a bright and sunny book, and 
represents virtue and obedience as bringitig forth the most 
pleasant fruits; and one, in reading it, would be apt to get 


the idea that a moral and God-fearing man must be su- 
(757) 


758 HENRY WARD BEECHER. 


premely happy. The promises abound, to the one side, of 
obedience; and the threats abound, to the other side, of 
disobedience. But if one turn to the New Testament, 
another style of teaching seems to prevail. There is a min- 
istration of sorrow; and it is declared that if a man will 
live righteously, he shall suffer tribulation. ‘ He shall be 
happy,’ says the Old Testament; ‘“‘ He shall be unhappy,” 
says the New Testament. ‘All his ways shall be ways of 
peace,” says the Old Testament. ‘He shall take my 
cross,’ says the New Testament. ‘Obedience, virtue, 
prudence, piety, are a crown of riches,’’ says the Old 
Testament; ‘‘ A crown of thorns they are,’ says the New 
Testament. 

What shall we do between these two differing representa- 
tions? This seeming conflict of statement runs through the 
Bible. There are in the New Testament intimations of the 
same doctrine that breaks out in such power in the Old. 
There are echoes in the New Testament of those very pro- 
mises of earthly joy in obedience which so superabound in 
the Old Testament. Religion is joyful; and yet, crucifixion 
is its symbol. The way of piety is called peace; and yet, 
we are commanded to put on the whole armor, and be ready, 
as warriors, to fight at any hour. Are these the symbols 
of peace? We are to rejoice; and yet we are to deny our- 
selves, and take up our cross and follow Christ. We are 
to inherit the world; and yet we are to forsake the world, 
and not be conformed to it. The Old Testament seems to 
exclude suffering from its ideal saint; and yet the New Tes- 
tament sets forth the divine man as ‘‘a man of sorrows, and 
acquainted with grief.” 

One class of minds goes to these diverse representations, 
and by elective affinity takes the joyous side, and simply 
does not meddle with the other. There are men who go 
through the Bible taking out its promises, its joyous, hope- 
ful, cheering, comforting passages, and elect these things to” 


THE PROBLEM OF JOY AND SUFFERING IN LIFE. [759 


themselves. They do not see that there is any controversy 
or conflict, simply because they do not consider the other 
side at all. They let it alone. As the disciples, when they 
walked through the fields eating corn, rubbed the ears in 
their hands, to get rid of the chaff; so there are a great 
many people who take the Scripture and rub it in their 
hands, and cut out the part that they like, and throw the rest 
away. ‘Therefore there are many persons who talk about 
religion as being a life of supreme and continuing joy, and 
for ever appeal to persons to become Christians because it is 
so joyful. Well, it is joyful—in spots. 

These persons are fairly matched by the ascetic spirits, 
who see the suffering element in the New Testament and in 
the Old, and make it the very prime experience of life. 
They believe in joy; but it is that which is to be found 
hereafter. The true ascetic throws forward his joy, and he 
has it only by expectation. Here he has to wear the girdle 
and the sackcloth. Here he has to play the martyr, in 
order that he may play the saint and the conqueror here- 
after. 

But the greater number of men vibrate in perplexity be- 
tween these two representations. They have a notion that 
true religion confers supreme happiness; but they are far 
from being fully happy. They are far from being very 
happy. And when they look round about them in the 
church, they see there all gradations, from sleepy good 
nature and indolent content, at the top of the scale, along 
down to the utmost disquiet and aspiration made unhappy. 
But then, they account for it, without any very close rea- 
soning or examination, on the theory that persons are not 
happy who are religious, because they have not enough reli- 
gion. This, as a mere matter of fact, is very true; but 
really, it does not seem to be an adequate philosophical 
statement to cover the whole meaning and harmonize these 
two elements of joy and sorrow that the Bible abounds in. 


760 HENRY WARD BEECHER. 


This class are nearer the truth than either of the former 
extremes; but they hold it in an empirical form. 

Now, cannot we get a larger view? Can not we throw 
light upon this problem of the mingling of joy and sorrow 
in this world? I propose it, not so much for the gratifica- 
tion of curiosity, or for the sake of exercising the philoso- 
phical ingenuity ; but because it has become indispensable 
to discuss such themes. Every age has to make a new state- 
ment of moral facts in the light of the consciousness of that 
age. The old statements held good for their time. They 
satisfied the yearnings, they met the moral necessities of 
the aspiring souls of their day. But the world goes on, 
and new statements become indispensable. If any age 


gains anything it lifts the next one up to a higher plane; 


and you must take new observations from that higher plane, 
and not change the truth, but recast the statements of it, 


-and newly form the theories which cover all the voluminous 


facts of moral consciousness among men. JBesides, it is out 
of this large view of the mingling of joy and sorrow in life 
that we shall derive, as I trust, in the sequel, some of the 
most potent motives for right living, and some of the most 
comforting views for our weakness, infirmities, and afflictions. 

If the race of men were ideally perfect, they would be 
perfectly happy. The ultimate divine idea in man is that 
he should be a creature organized to produce happiness in 
every one of his multiform faculties. Although happiness 
is not the end and aim of being, it is yet the invariable con- 
comitant of moral perfection. Happiness may be said to 
be one of the signs, therefore, of ripeness in any faculty. 
In other words, if the mind of man is imagined as standing 
in the complete condition for which it was designed, it would 


‘be in harmony with universal law, with universal being, 


with its own self; and it would, under the divine purpose, 
ring out true and perfect happiness. It is an agent com- 
plex, but made to be happy. 


THE PROBLEM OF JOY AND SUFFERING IN LIFE. [761 


Religion, then, regarded as a theory of a perfect state, is 
right in pronouncing itself a way of pleasantness, and a path 
of peace. If a man could but walk perfectly in the way of 
religion, he would be perfectly happy. The way zs pleasant, 
and all the paths are peace; and yet, along that pleasant 
way there are groans and sorrows innumerable ; and along 
that way of peace there is struggle, turmoil, combat, and 
confusion. But the divine plan and intent, the ultimate 
state, is a state of supreme blessedness. It is the teleologr- 
eal condition—if you have read modern books, and accepted 
their terminology. The nature of man is one which, when 
brought fully up to its divine ideal, will produce constant 
happiness. | 

But man is not born into an ideal state—into a perfect 
state, even. On the contrary, he is born further from his 
nature than any other creature on earth. Some creatures 
are born right up to their nature. They have their whole 
nature at birth. The fly never grows a particle. It never 
takes on a faculty, nor augments a faculty. It is a complete 
fly, it is a patriarch, the minute it is hatched. There is no 
expansion to it. As you go down on the scale to the lowest 
form of animated creation, you shall observe that, there, all 
the faculties a creature is to have, he has in their full, ple- 
nary power the moment he starts; but you will observe, as 
you go up in the scale, that there is this distinguishing 
peculiarity: that as animal nature rises in structure and in 
scope of being, the space between the birth-point and the 
full possession of itself is augmented and widened. And 
how long it takes an animal to come to its maturity, mea- 
sures somewhat, the place on the scale of animal creation 
where it stands. The lower down you go, the nearer the 
creation is to perfection when it starts; and the higher up 
you go, the further it is from perfection when it starts. And 
nothing is so far from it as a man. ‘There is nothing so far 
from the perfection of even his physical powers as a man. 


762 HENRY WARD BEECHER. 


Born as a babe, what is a man that neither sees nor hears ; 
that distinguishes nothing; that knows nothing; that is as 
near to pulp as anything can be? And yet that child is a 
son of God, and is destined yet, through evolution and edu. 
cation, and sanctifying grace or inspiration, to rise and be 
but little lower than the angels. But oh! how long the 
journey from the cradle to the crown! Man is not born 
into his perfect state. He is born just as far from it, it 
would seem, as God could put him. It is not an accident, 
either, I take it. It is a characteristic fact, not to be lost 
sight of in any moral theory of facts respecting the human 
family in this mortal state. 

Regarding man historically—that is, through the whole 
‘race, and the periods of it—he was born at the point at 
which the animal stops, and moral intelligence begins. To 
be unfolded from this seminal point, and grow up to the full 
‘spiritual manhood in Christ Jesus, is the real problem of 
historic times. Races of men, savage, uncivilized, animal, 
began at the very lowest conceivable point. There is no 
revelation that gives us anything to the contrary. There is 
no true knowledge that does not point in that direction, 
namely, that the race originated in conditions just a little 
above the animal, but with the capacity to go on immea- 
surably beyond them. On the whole, but slowly, with wide 
intermissions and many retrocessions, and with a vast waste, 
the race has steadily grown away from its animal conditions, 
and is surely reaching upward toward its ideal spiritual 
state. As a race, it is going to give evidence of a far 
higher condition than might be suspected from anything we 
can see by looking backward; and you should remember, 
when you speak of the human race, that nature does not lie 
backward. Nature to us lies forward, always. That is our | 
nature to which we come when we are unfolded and deve- 
loped by the education of God’s spirit—not that with which 


THE PROBLEM OF JOY AND SUFFERING IN LIFE. %63 


we started. For God put us as far from himself as his arm 
could reach, when he started us. 

Each generation in this race is set back, as it were, and 
has to do for itself what the whole race had to do—namely, 
find its way up from nothing to something; and from some- 
thing to the highest form of development. Every child is 
born an animal. It is that and nothing else, literally, at 
the beginning. Every child has to learn how to control 
itself as an animal. The lamb does not. Dropped in the 
morning, by night it sports over all the pasture, nimbler, if 
possible, than its own dam. But the child that is born waits 
its year before it even knows how to walk. It does not 
know how to find its foot or its hand except through slow 
feelings and rude gropings after it, through months, and 
months, and months. A child has to learn from the begin- 
ning everything. It knows absolutely nothing. And that 
which the race is doing on the great scale, each individual 
of it is doing in his generation. 

It becomes easier, every age, to do it. That is to say, 
every single individual man has to learn how to use his 
physical organization ; how to use his intellectual faculties ; 
how to use his social capacity; how to employ his moral 
nature. These things are not made known to him. They 
are not set into him like machinery, to work themselves. 
They are things which belong to that great process of edu- 
cation which is going on in the whole world, in regard to the 
whole race, and in regard just as much to every individual 
of that race. At first it was slow and operose; but it be- 
comes easier in every age, because each man now born has 
the accumulated wisdom and experience of all that went 
before him. Books are only another form of giving immor- 
tality to the best part of men that lived hitherto. They are 
the resultant of men’s lives in their highest forms. All that 
past races knew, thought, felt, found out, invented, they 
passed on down, so that when men are born now they do not 


764 HENRY WARD BEECHER. 


have to find everything out by such tedious methods as men 
did in earlier times. A child born in the wilderness is born 
into a condition where roads are to be made, and bridges are 
to be constructed, and churches and school-houses and dwell- 
ings are to be built, and furniture is to be made, and every- 
thing has to be done; but a child born in a civilized 
community finds thousands of things ready for his use, and 
is spared the trouble of discovering them, so that he can go. 
on to higher ones. In earlier periods men had to go on, 
part by part, finding out intellectual, moral, and social prob- 
lems. As far down as the time of the patriarchs, men did 
not know any difference between their children and their, 
oxen. Both were their property. It used to be the case 
that a man wooed his wife with his pocket. He bought her. 
If anything had been said about courting a wife, men would 
have looked upon it as an invasion of their prerogatives. 
“They were so low down in the scale of development that 
they did not know the difference between intellectual, and 
moral, and physical qualities—between an organized intel- 
lectual and moral being, and a lower organization of mere 
material things. Therefore men bought and sold their ser- 
vants; bought and sold children; bought and sold wives; 
bought and sold everything. It was a low and undeveloped 
condition of things. But we have been born into a state 
of the world, thank God, that is advanced far beyond that— _ 
though I can remember when men read the Bible and 
preached those old doctrines; as though six thousand years’ 
experience had not taught the race anything, and the world 
had not learned anything. It has, however, learned a great 
deal; and now, when men are born into the world, there is 
a vast accumulation of science and art. Vast treasures in 
every direction meet us. And this abbreviates the work that 
we have to do. Hach individual has to go over the same path 
that the race has gone over. But the race, having gone on 
before, has broken roads, and set up signboards, so that 


THE PROBLEM OF JOY AND SUFFERING IN LIFE. [65 


every individual that follows after goes faster and surer than 
those who preceded him. And the world is better fitted to 
receive and educate its children than it was once. Children 
are not born into such desolate conditions as they used to 
be—in civilized nations, at any rate. 

Then the force of great laws in hereditariness is increas- 
ing. For God has brought the most powerful motive to bear 
on the parental heart—namely, the law that we roll over on 
our children the qualities that are dominant in ourselves. 
Where a man lives in virtue, the presumption is that his 
children will take on virtue easier than if he had not. If 
you live for intelligence, the presumption is that your child- 
ren will be educated easier than if you had not. And if a 
whole generation of men are brought successively through 
periods of education, their posterity will begin with a hered- 
itary educating impulse which will avail them immensely. 
It is a law which was revealed as far back as the Old Testa- 
ment, that God will visit the sins of the parents upon the 
children to the third and fourth generation. And this law 
is making it easier and easier, in every condition, for men to 
grow away from their animal conditions. 

But whatever progress has been made, it is still true, just 
as really of the very best as of the most neglected, that men . 
are born empty of holiness. They are at the furthest ex- 
treme and remove from perfection. There is not one single 
man born virtuous and good. Weare born negative. Every 
single person born has the necessity of growing up into 
Christ in all things. There is no more universal proposition 
than this: ‘‘ Except a man be born again, he cannot see the 
kingdom of God.” 

This is the truth which I suppose men were feeling after, 
and which they really, to their own inward thoughts, did 
embody in their phrases, when they described men as béing 
depraved, and doubly depraved. They were feeling after 
fundamental facts, which are all-important in any ministra- 


766 HENRY WARD BEECHER. 


tion. I should prefer to dismiss that term ‘“‘ depraved,” as 
not according to our later views, and as not best expressing 
the facts as they exist. I reject it because it is on one side 
covered with prejudices, and on the other side with miscon- 
ceptions; yet that which was meant by the term is unques- 
tionably a truth of fundamental importance. It is true that 
by nature all men are without God. All men are in this 
sense alienate from God. It is thus also, and in the same 
way, that men are without knowledge; alienate from skill; 
ignorant of wealth, of self-government, of everything. They 
do not know how to think, nor to discriminate, nor how to 
love, nor how to have moral inspiration. When men are 
born, in the earlier stages of their lives all the preparations 
_are with them for these experiences; but not only are they 
born without holiness, but this is only a partial statement: 
they are born without knowledge, without refinement, with- 
-out skill, without anything but a pack, packed up tight, 
which they are to unpack and learn how to use. For a man 
is a great bundle of tools. He is born into this life without 
the knowledge of how to use them; but he may learn how 
to use them, and how to use himself according to the laws 
of his nature, according to the world in which he lives, and 
according to the society to which he belongs. 

The problem of human life is, how to unfold what God 
has put into you; how to make it more and more; how to 
co-ordinate it, so that the faculties shall rank themselves 
together, and march in organizations; so that it may go 
away from the animal toward the spiritual, and live more by 
the power of the spiritual world than by the power of the 
senses in the material world. This is man’s business here 
on earth. And when you say that a man is born depraved, 
if you mean that he has no holiness, I believe so, too. He 
is without God. But then, he is without any knowledge of 
his own father and mother. He does not know his brothers 
and sisters. He is ignorant of his neighbors. He has no 


THE PROBLEM OF JOY AND SUFFERING IN LIFE. [67 


consciousness of his own nation. Spread before the child 
the country’s flag, the sight of which thrills us with such 
patriotic emotions, and what does he see in it but a play- 
thing? It has no associations to him. He has no know- 
ledge concerning it. Everything is to be learned. This is 
the organic decree. God did not make men perfect. He 
made them pilgrims after perfection. 

As I have said, men are born with all the faculties of 
reason; but not with knowledge. That they are to find. 
Men are born with social natures; but not with social loves 
and refinements of experience. These they are to work out. 
Men are born with moral sense; but not with knowledge of 
its fruits, its inspirations, its various experiences. It is the 
business of their life to find out these things. 

To teach all this vast lore of experience, God has estab- 
lished what I may call five schools. The first school into 
which a man is born is the school of the family, where 
parental love is the schoolmaster. But he is just as much 
born into a school of the material world. And it is a part 
of the teaching of the family to induct the child into a 
knowledge of his physical organization, and into a know- 
ledge of physical actions, so that he shall learn what is good 
and bad; what is sharp and blunt; what is high and low; 
what is water and fire. It is a part of our early experience 
to learn how to live according to the law of the material 
' globe. 

Then comes the school of civil society—or, organized 
social life on a large scale. Men have to learn that. And 
in learning that, they learn what are civil laws; what are 
the rights of their fellow-men; and what are the modes of 
getting along with men. In learning it, they are still fur- 
ther to develop the faculties, and still further to bring them 
into subjection to the laws of organization. 

Then comes the school of business, or creative industry, 
which some men seem to think is a necessary evil, which a 


768 HENRY WARD BEECHER. 


man has to run into in order to get a mouthful of bread, and 
then run out of in order to be pious! But the great king- 
dom of work is a part of God’s church on earth. It is there 
that God teaches us moral ideas. We learn a part of our 
lesson in the family; a part of it in the material world, deal- 
ing with matter; a part of it in civil society, dealing with 
the laws and the interests of men; and a part of it from the 
creative force exerted upon matter, which is industry. But 
all this is not something exceptional, and a necessary evil in 
this life. It is a department of that one great school in which 
men are to find themselves. 

Then comes the school of the church, which is the last, 
and in which men learn moral and spiritual truths. Some 
of these things men have learned, if they have been brought 
up rightly, before the church reaches them; but here is the 
culminating influence in God’s grace working through the 
truth as it is in Christ Jesus, and sent home by the inspira- 
. tion of the Holy Ghost. This is the highest department 
of the great university of life. Beginning in the family, and 
going through the physical world, through the civil world, 
and through the industrial world, up into the moral or spirit- 
ual world—this is the unity of that preparation which God 
has made by which men, born at nothing, shall learn how to 
take out the store and treasure of their faculties, and educate 
them, develop them, co-ordinate them, control them, carry 
them up from step to step, until they are made perfect men 
in Christ Jesus. 

These are simple facts that I have been stating—not 
theories. Men are born just as I have said they were. 
They are educated just as I have said they were. I believe 
they are facts that are not accidental, but that indicate the 
divine mind. At any rate, it is the best light I can get at 
present, in my age. Looking at the difficulties which men 
have to contend with; looking at the evils which beset them 
on every side, I see no other theory on which you can explain 


THE PROBLEM OF JOY AND SUFFERING IN LIFE. [769 


these unquestionable facts in respect to the way in which 
men come into this world, and in respect to the way in which 
the world takes care of them, develops them, and prepares 
them. 

It is in the light of such a development that we see the 
relation between sorrow and joy in the Christian scheme. 
Joy is an attribute of man’s nature drawn out and perfected. 
It abides with him. Its perfect form will be the fruit of his 
highest state. He is living toward joy, if he is living to- 
ward development. If he is rising higher and higher, he is 
becoming what God meant every nature should become—a 
perfect enginery for the production of manifold joys in sub- 
lime harmonies. This is that which we are all seeking. 
This is that which the race will ultimately reach. 

But sorrow, on the other hand, is that conflict which every 
person experiences as he is endeavoring to learn. Sorrow 
is the non-observance of laws, whether it be through igno- 
rance or momentary wilfulness. Sorrow is the conflict of 
men on the way to themselves. It is the conflict of men 
with their lower nature, when they are attempting to take 
possession of it and control it by their higher faculties. It 
is the participation of each individual with something of 
the sadness which belongs to the whole economy in which 
he lives. In other words, it is a part of his social liability. 
It is the incident of growth from a lower to a higher state. 
When men are seeking themselves, and do not know how to 
walk, and fall down, that is hurt, if it is bodily; and if it 
is moral, it is suffering. If a child puts its hand in the fire, 
itis pain; and it is pain that will keep the child from ever 
putting its hand there again. He has learned something. 
If a man, being selfish, and having once suffered from the 
results of selfishness, were as wise as the child that puts its 
hand in the fire, he would avoid selfishness in the future ; 
but that is not the way of the world. A man, walking along 
a path at night, as long as it is smooth feels that he is in 

25 3c 


770 HENRY WARD BEECHER. 


the path; but by and by, falling into some quag, he says, 
“What! quags in good roads?’ And then he says, ‘‘Oh! 
no, I am not in the road. The road is pleasant and easy ; 
and if I get my feet into the mud, it is because I am not in 
the road.” 

What, then, is the fact but this: that if a man only knows 
the right path, he goes on without suffering, and that if he 
suffers, it is because he is not in the right path. Suffering 
is God’s regent of the universe, saying, ‘‘ The way is a way 
of pleasantness, and all its paths are peace; and therefore 
when you suffer it is because you are out of the way.” So 
there is something to be learned in this direction. When 
the boys whisper and laugh, instead of studying their les- 
sons, there comes a gentle rap, not hurting them much, 
which says, ‘‘The teacher is behind you, and you are not 
doing your duty ;” and they gather up. And so there are 
inconveniences in life rapping us men, and saying, You are 
not doing your duty. But when boys are ugly and mali- 
cious and quarrelsome, and they are hitting each other, and 
pinching each other, and pinning each other, the school- 
master comes behind them with a most vehement souvenir, 
that teaches them more—namely, that they are wicked, and 
are doing wrong, first, in neglecting their lessons; and, 
secondly, in inflicting pain unnecessarily upon each other. 
And in life the things that men suffer are testimonies of the 
ever-watchful Master that is behind you, and saying, *“* You 
are neglecting your duty, and you are doing wrong.” The 
way in which you should walk is a pleasant way, and suf- 
fering, in this world, is nothing but that necessary chastise- 
ment and pain which God has infixed throughout the whole, 
divine scheme, in order to keep men from wrong paths, and 
keep them going toward that higher state where they are to 
emerge into immortality and glory. 

Therefore it is that the two ideas are perfectly harmo- 
nious and consistent. .You might call suffering the labor- 


THE PROBLEM OF JOY AND SUFFERING IN LIFE. 71 


pain of virtue, being born into a higher state out of a lower. 


It is not a thing desirable in itself; but instrumentally it is 


desirable, as a motive, as a spur, as an incitement, as an 
inducement, in men, to rise to a higher state. 

If this be so, I remark, 

1. The search for the origin of evil, about which so much 
has been thought and said, is a mistaken search, in the di- 
rection in which men are looking for it. When men have 
squared the circle, and found the philosopher’s stone, and 
discovered perpetual motion, then they will find this too. 
But they will not find any of them. ‘They are, all four of 
them, mistakes. The reason why God made seeds instead 
of perfected fruit is the only question. Why did God make 
men at the bottom, and then say to them, “ Climb clear up 
to the top?’ Evil is nothing in the world but a part of the 
divine system by which we are to be unfolded. And if men 
were made to find their way up from nothing to something, 
through various gradations, and pain and suffering are but 
incitements and pressures to help them on, the question is 
not, ‘‘ What is the origin of evil?’ for the origin of evil is 
but another name for the origin of suffering. And suffer- 
ing is not evil. You might as well ask what is the origin of 
a man’s suffering when he is learning to drive nails, and he 
hits his thumb instead of the nail, as to ask what is the 
origin of evil. He does not know how to strike straight: 
that is the origin of it. What men call “evil” originates 
from their not knowing to carry their faculties. They were 
born without knowing it. 

Here is a man with forty plenary powers in him, every 
one of which is a prince, every one of which is seeking de- 
velopment, and every one of which is left to find out, by 
experiment, its own nature, and capacity, and design. He 
was born without knowledge, for the most part, of himself. 
And, do you ask, what was the origin of his mistakes ? 
Simply the fact that he did not know, and was born not to 


a 


112 HENRY WARD BEECHER. 


know. What is the reason that a man who is lost in the 
woods travels, in finding his way out, ten miles, when he 
might get out by travelling one mile? Because he did-not 
know the road, and he kept wandering about here and there 
to find it. And so men are wandering about in life to find 
themselves. And what are called sins are to be limited to 
those wrong things which men do on purpose. ‘The rest are 
infirmities which God looks compassionately upon, and sor- 
rows over. He punishes sins which are in the nature of 
purposed wrong-doing, and pities the infirmities which men 
fall into, not knowing how to do any better, or only par- 
tially knowing how to do better. 

Let us not, therefore, look about and say, ‘“‘ How does evil 
get into the world?” for that question will only be answered 
when you can tell why God preferred to make men as he did 
make them, the sum of nothing, with the capacity to develop 
into infinite power in infinite directions. It pleased him to 
do it. 

2. We see, from the statements that have been made, if 
they be accepted, what is the true and proper meaning of 
self-denial. One of the earliest lessons that a man learns is 
to be an animal. He learns the animal functions first. He 
learns the faintest animal relations of truth. Matter is the 
thing that first addresses itself to him. A child learns the 
physical globe before it even learns its mother. The mother 
is learned through the child’s material wants. The first 
education of every human being in this world is to teach him 
to be a little animal. But very soon there begin to be con- 
flicting claims in the child. And now comes the question 
of priority. And every once in a while there will come a 
time when there will arise a little conflict in the child’s mind 
as to which shall rule, those faculties that represent the 
affections, or those that represent the appetites, and when 
one or the other must prevail. And if the child triumphs, 
and the affections prevail, that is self-denial. It is affection 


THE PROBLEM OF JOY AND SUFFERING IN LIFE. 773 


saying to passion, “You are lower than I, and you must 
step down there and wait for me.”” That is self-denial. It 
is a higher faculty making a lower one keep down, and know 
its place. 

Then, the moment the affections begin to get strong, there 
are moral sentiments which rise up and assert their authority 
over the affections. Questions present themselves where 
persons are called to decide whether they will follow their 
affections or their duty. Duty rises in every soul, and says, 
“‘T am higher than affection.’”” And if there is a question 
as to which shall govern, duty must govern, and not affec- 
tion. And affection experiences suffering. And this is self- 
denial. It is self-denial of a lower feeling for the sake of 
giving liberty and power and influence to a higher one. 

Every time a true act of self-denial takes place, two things 
happen: first, a lower feeling suffers, because it cannot have 
its own way: and, secondly, a higher feeling rejoices, because 
it has its own way. There are two feelings that enter into 
every act of self-denial: one of sorrow, because a lower 
faculty is brought into subjection; and the other of joy, 
because a higher faculty is brought into the ascendency. 

Now see how this clears away all the absurd notions that 
have prevailed in this world about the mission of pain and 
suffering. Many persons say, ‘I ought to deny myself.” 
They are going along in life very happily, and do not per- 
ceive any particular reason for changing their course, but 
they have read that a man must deny himself, and they say 
to themselves, ‘‘What shall I deny myself in? I wish I 
knew how I could deny myself.”” And they go to work and 
invent modes of self-denial. One person says, ‘I will not 
eat any butter.” So he denies himself. Another person 
says, ‘I enjoy a good coat as well as anybody else; but, 
being a Christian, my duty is to deny myself; so I will get 
linsey-woolsey and let the broadcloth go.” That is his self- 
denial. Men have no idea of what self-denial is. They are 


"74 HENRY WARD BEECHER. 


floundering after something, they do not know what. They 
are searching for an opportunity for self-denial, not under- 
standing that to deny one’s self is simply to put down a 
lower feeling, in order to give a higher feeling ascendency. 
You have an opportunity for self-denial every time you see 
aman. If you meet a man that you dislike, put down that 
hateful enmity of soul. That will be self-denial. Every 
time you see a person in misery, and you shrink from 
relieving him, then relieve him. That will be self-denial. 
Do not say, “‘Iam so busy I cannot stop to see that little 
curmudgeon in the street;” but stop. God says, ‘* You are 
all brethren ;’’ and, ragged and dirty as that child is, it is 
related to you in the larger relationship of the eternal world ; 
‘ and you must not be so busy as not to have time to care for 
him. If your selfishness says, “‘I cannot stop; I do not 
want to be plagued with these little rufhans of the street,” 
and a diviner element in the soul says, ‘‘ Stop! neither busi- 
ness nor pleasure has any right here: religion and humanity 
and duty must rule here:’” and if you obey the dictates of 
that divine element, then you deny yourself. You put down 
mean indifferences and pestiferous selfishness for the sake of 
giving a royal tone of joy to your upper nature, do you not? 

“In honor preferring one another.’’ This injunction 
suggests an ample field for self-denial. You that invent 
sack-cloth and hair-mittens to rub yourselves with, so as to 
get up self-denial and suffering; when you sit and hear 
your brother in the law, of the office next to yours, praised, 
what is it that makes you hold your breath? ‘Oh!’ you 
say, “that is envy. I ought not to feel so.” There is a 
blessed struggle. What is born out of it? If you rise 
superior to that comparison between yourself and him, and 
say, ‘“‘I thank God that he is esteemed more than I am; I 
love and honor him, and I am glad to see his name go up, 
and it does not hurt me to have his name go above mine,” 
then there is a glorious self-denial. What are the elements 


THE PROBLEM OF JOY AND SUFFERING IN LIFE. 775 


of it? Why, putting down your own selfishness, and putting 
up the brotherhood feeling. 

‘No man, then, need hunt among hair-shirts; no man need 
seek for blankets too short at the bottom and too short at 
the top; no man need resort to iron seats or cushionless 
chairs; no man need shut himself up in grim cells; no man 
need stand on the tops of towers or columns, in order to 
deny himself. There are abundant opportunities for self- 
denial. If a man is going to place the higher part of his 
nature uppermost, he will have business enough on hand. 
He will not need to go into the wilderness to deny himself. 
And, by the way, to go alone into the wilderness is no safe- 
guard against evil. A man never went into the wilderness 
in this world that the devil did not go with him. In the 
city, the devil has so much to do that he cannot pay much 
attention to any one man; but in the wilderness he has you! 
It is a bad plan to keep by yourself too much. When you 
are under wholesome excitements in life, when you are made 
to vibrate and respond to genial influences, these things help 
you on toward self-denial. . 

It is not meant that a man should suffer because there is 
any good in suffering, in and of itself. Suffering is merely 
incidental. The good lies in the struggle in you between a 
higher and a lower feeling; and self-denial is the triumph 
of the higher feeling over the lower. ‘Therefore, every man 
that suffers when he denies himself shows that the upper 
feeling is yet faint. 

A man takes a musical instrument and undertakes to bring 
up one part of it, so that it shall sound louder than any 
other part. The moment he brings it up so that it sounds a 
little louder than the others, people say, ‘‘ Yes, I think I do 
hear that upper note;’’ but it is so faint that a person has 
to put his hand to his ear to hear it. But by and by the 
man works the instrument so that out rolls this upper note 
so clearly that, although the under notes are there, every- 


776 HENRY WARD BEECHER. 


body says, ‘‘ Ah! now it has come out; now I hear it; it is 
all right now.’’ Andaman that denies himself in the truest 
Christian way, does it so that the joy of the upper feelings 
rolls clear over the pain and suffering of the lower feelings. 
Where this does not take place, the self-denial is very 
imperfect. 

8. In the line of this discussion we see, too, the fore- 
shadowings of the cross in human life. In the whole line of 
development we see, in this world, the great principle of love, 
which is divine, because it did not spring from anything that 
we can see, but from the original creative decree. The prin- 
ciple of love and the nature of love were certainly as directly 
from God, when it was infixed in the human composition, as 
anything that we can imagine. If you will watch the devel- 
opment of love as it takes place between the parent and the 
child, even in the savage state, you will see that there is 
infixed in the nature of human love a tendency to bear, not 
for one’s self, but for others; to bear their troubles and 
cares. 

The first experience we have of self-abnegation, joyful and 
beautiful, is where the mother bears for her child. It is not 
merely the love of recipiency. The love that men mostly 
know in their adult life is the susceptibility of being played 
upon by others; of being made happy by the intercourse of 
other natures. Thatisa poor love. The nature of the truer 
love is to exercise the parental instinct. We see substitution 
in it. If the child does wrong, the parent takes the smart, 
and lets the child learn a lesson—that is, to some extent, for 
this cannot go to all lengths. Love attempts to substitute 
the experience of older hands and bodies and minds for the 
inexperience of younger ones, so that the child shall not 
suffer so much as it would if it had none to take care of it. 
Nay, we see 7mputation in parental love; so that the parent 
is all the time accounting with the child as if it had virtues 
that it has not. The parent, for instance, persuades the 


THE PROBLEM OF JOY AND SUFFERING IN LIFE. [777 


child to do things which the child would not do of its own 
accord, and gives it large credit and large praise for that 
which the parent incited and fixed in the child. 

4. We see love suffering in life. Although the various 
developments of love are imperfect, yet we see the sphere of 
these qualities widening and widening, until we see love in 
all the organisms of society, as existing in the intimate rela- 
tionships of friend and friend, of parent and child, and of 
brothers and sisters. We see in love the overshadowings 
of that sublime disclosure which was made on the cross, of 
divine love. God so loved the world that he gave his Son 
to die for it. And what is revealed by that fact? That 
God had learned to do it? No; but that the faint snatches 
which we see of such a nature of love as is manifested in the 
family, are parts of the revelation of divine truth in nature, 
which was more gloriously revealed in the person of Jesus 
Christ. Parental love is John Baptist to the atoning love 
of Christ Jesus. And though it is very imperfect, a mere 
scratch, simply an outline, shorthand, as it were, yet it is 
sufficient to prepare us to understand, and assist us in under- 
standing, when the disclosure is made of it, that greater love 
in Christ Jesus, who gave himself, not only that he might 
redeem the world, but that he might redeem every individual 
in the world, making all men at last pure and spotless, when 
he shall present them before the throne of his Father in 
eternal glory.: 

This power, therefore, of perfectness to take on suffering, 
for the sake of shielding from suffering those that are in a 
lower sphere, is the secret of the Cross. The hidden mys- 
tery of Christ’s sacrifice and death is not alone taught us in 
the New Testament. The expectation for it is created 
when we look out into nature and society. And when, 
afterward, we go back to the word of God, it is susceptible 
of no other interpretation but this—that God does bear the 
sins of men, and carry their sorrows; and that when he puts 


778 HENRY WARD BEECHER. 


men into a world where there are pain, and sorrow, and 
shortcomings, and infirmities, and sufferings, he does not 
leave them alone. He himself dwells in the household. 
And as a parent that is bringing up a child inflicts suffering 
and permits suffering to be inflicted upon the child, for his 
good, watching his progress and studying to meet his wants 
all the way up through his education; so God is the edu- 
cator of time and the world, and by suffering he develops 
men to that perfectness which at last shall be without suffer- 
ing in the eternal sphere. 

5. In the light of these disquisitions, they that are in 
trouble or in sorrow must learn the true way out of it. 
There is but one way out of suffering, and that way is up- 
‘ward. All other ways are adjourning it, or preparing for its 
recurrence in even greater measure. When men suffer in any 
of the vicissitudes of life, and go down toward their passions 
as a refuge, or go out laterally, as it were, to hide them- 
selves in amusements, their sufferings are like the blossoms of 
an apple-tree that fall without fruit, multitudes of them. 
No lesson is learned, no victory is gained, no strength is 
attained. But when a man suffers, and accepts the suffer- 
ing, and says, ‘‘It is a messenger of God sent to teach me 
to rise higher in that part of my being in which I am living; 
to strengthen that which is good over against that which is 
bad: I must think higher; I must live better; I must be 
nobler; I must commune more with God; I must come 
nearer to the invisible and eternal world; the further I go 
down toward the animal, the more I must suffer; and the 
higher I rise toward the spiritual, the less shall I suffer’’— 
when a man does this, he has learned the lesson that every 
one should learn. If God has sent afflictions upon you, 
whether they come from yourself or from your social lia- 
bilities—from your connection one with another—the golden 
gate that leads into the way which is pleasant, and into the 
paths which are peace, is an upward gate. And the nearer 


|THE PROBLEM OF JOY AND SUFFERING IN LIFE. U79 


a man can get to God, the less anything on earth can afflict 
him. ‘That is one reason why prayer, even when men in their 
own consciousness are not Christians, is so soothing and quiet- 
ing. In the act of lifting the soul up above its passions 
into the conscious presence of the Eternal, though it be 
blind, though it be the pleading of a child with an unknown 
Father, there is something that lifts a man in the right 
direction. But how much more when God is dearer to the 
soul than all the contents of earth; when the soul can say, 
‘There is none on earth like thee, and there is none upon 
the earth that I desire beside thee!’ Communion with God 
is prayer—oh! what a refuge out of trouble! Oh! what a 
pavilion in which God does hide men, according to his pro- 
mise, until the storm be overpast! Out of sorrow by going 
down? Ah! thatis bad comfort. Out of sorrow by resort- 
ing to stoical philosophy? It only hardens and toughens 
the fibre of feeling. Out of the mere erosion of suffering ? 
That is not a manly comfort. Oh! lift up your head. 
Find peace and comfort by giving flight to the higher ele- 
ments of your highest nature: love, and faith, and hope, 
and joy in the Holy Ghost. There is the divine prescrip- 
tion. And there never was a trouble so grievous that there 
was not, in this joy in the Holy Ghost, assuagement and 
peace, ‘There never was a heart so smitten that there was 
not restoration in true Christian faith. 

When the rude ox or the fierce wind has broken off the 
shrub, and laid it down on the ground lacerated and torn, it 
lies there but a few hours before the force of nature in the 
stem and in the root begins to work; and soon new buds 
shoot out; and before the summer shall have gone round, the 
restorative effort of nature will bring out on that shrub 
other branches. And shall the heart of a man be crushed, 
and God send sweet influences of comfort from above to in- 
spirit it, and that heart not be able to rise above its deso- 
lateness ? 


780 HENRY WARD BEECHER. 


What sorrow is there that has God’s liberty to ride you 

as a despot? What bereavements did God ever give liberty 
to be your tyrant? What laws did God ever give leave to 
come to you and say, “I own you?” You are God’s, and 
no one else’s. And there is no suffering, no sorrow, no 
human experience, that you have not the power to rise 
above, to subdue—nay, to harness to you, and make carry 
you. For sufferings rightly understood are, as it were, 
God’s coursers harnessed to your chariot to bear you up. 
Horses and a chariot of fire did the prophet have to take 
him to heaven; but he is not the only one that went to 
heaven in a chariot of fire. Thousands are riding in chariots 
of fire. Sorrow is the fire; and troubles are those coursers 
by which myriads of men are being drawn, in that flaming 
chariot, heavenward. 
. Do not understand, then, that suffering or sorrow are 
incidental or accidental. They are all of them divine. 
Rightly understood and rightly used, sorrow is to the man 
what the whetstone is to the razor. You are made sharper 
by it. Without it you very soon lose your edge, and cut 
dull. With sorrow men never forget. Sorrow is the trumpet 
that sounds through the camp when the enemy is near, that 
you may be aroused and ready to meet your adversary. 
Sorrow is that friendly blow by which you, sleeping in the 
midst of suffocating fumes, are aroused. For God does not 
mean that you shall perish. He loves you too well. Ah! 
is there not comfort in the declaration, ‘‘ Whom I love I 
chasten, and scourge every son whom I receive’? ‘ You 
had children,” says God, “and you chastised them for your 
own pleasure; but I, that they may be partakers of my 
holiness.’ There is the Gospel; the whole of it. 

Blessed are they that have sorrow. Sad are they that are 
without it. He must be a very good man that has lived in 
this world and has not had any trouble. Steamships do not 
care whether the wind blows or not, because they have in- 


THE PROBLEM OF JOY AND SUFFERING IN LIFE. 781 


ternal motive forces ; but we are not steamships, and we need 
troubles as winds to bear us on. We make no voyages with- 
out troubles, unless we are very good indeed. 

Blessed be God, then, that gives us sorrow upon sorrow, 
trouble upon trouble, stroke upon stroke. These things are 
so many knockings at the gate of heaven, saying, ‘‘ Open, 
Lord.” Let heaven’s gate fly open when they fall on you. 
See to it that they take you to God. See to it that they 
take you to higher manliness and to God. Never in sorrow 
be sorry for anything which you have done that was right, 
and pure, and true. Never in sorrow say, ‘Oh! that I had 
the leeks and onions of Egypt, and were not obliged to eat 
this food of the desert which I so much loathe.”’ When God 
is taking you through the wilderness toward the promised 
land, never look back, nor shrink. Bear your trouble, and 
say, ‘Strike, God, and strike again, and as often as need- 
ful; do anything to me and take anything from me; but let 
me have thee, and life, and life eternal.” 


thes 
DIVINE AND HUMAN COPARTNERSHIP. 


Fowler. 

[CuarLes Henry Fowrsr, D. D., a gifted pulpit orator of the M. E. 
Church in the West, was born the son of a Canadian refugee, August 
11th 1837. His boyhood and youth were spent on a farm in central 
Illinois. In 1859 he graduated with first honors from Genesee Col- 
lege, New York, and two years later from Garrett Biblical Institute, 
Evanston, Illinois. Dr. Fowler’s ministerial labors have been devoted 
to Chicago, although he was offered the presidency of the North- 
Western University. Upon the martyrdom of Abraham Lincoln, he 
‘was chosen to deliver the commemorative eulogy in that city. His 
literary works include able contributions to the church periodicals, 
and a volume exposing the fallacies of Bishop Colenso. In the words 
of a co-laborer: “He is a man of marked intellectuality, of great 
imagination and fancy—withal, of great force of will, of tireless 
energy and industry. The pulpit is his throne, which he fills with a 
kingly grace.’ This Sermon was preached at the dedication of the 
Arch Street M. E. Church, Philadelphia, in 1870. ] 


‘“ For ye are laborers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry : ye 
are God’s building.” —1 Cor. ili. 9. 


I 11KE this passage that I have read in your hearing as a 
text, because there is so much in it—simple and plain, and 
familiar, yet full, and possibly profound—certainly practi- 
cal. It is an epitome of the divine economy; it is full of 
the richest and profoundest human philosophy ;. it is quiver- 
ing all over with divine power. Like the nightly pillar in 
the camp of Israel, it stands in this epistle radiant and 
glorious with the divine presence. What an inlook it gives 
us, when we look carefully at it, into the mystery of our 
living and into the dignity of our fellowships, and into the 
glory of our destiny ! 

It is an entire income of divinity into humanity, with its 


mangers and its wildernesses, with its gardens and its Cal- 
(782) 


DIVINE AND HUMAN COPARTNERSHIP. 783 


varies; and it is also a transfiguration—an exaltation of 
humanity under the divine commission, with its inspirations 
and its resurrections, with its ascensions and its enthrone- 
ments, for we are ‘‘ laborers together with God.” 

I suppose, in the exposition of this text, like the exposi- 
tion of most other texts of Scripture, that which is best is 
that which is simplest and most manifest on the surface. 
The critical putting of the passage is that you and I are 
workers together of or under God. The general application 
of the passage is that we are workers together with God, 
supported by the general Scripture teaching. The same 
truth is put in another passage by the apostle when he says: 
“We are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, 
while God worketh in us to will and to do of his own good 
pleasure.’’ And he also exhorts these same Corinthians as 
laborers together with God. So, it seems, we have a right 
to a joint application of the passage as it stands before us, 
that God and we are in copartnership. 

Notice a moment the exceeding skill, almost amounting to 
a cunning perception of the case—the skill with which the 
apostle brings out the kind of work to be done by us in the 
very words used to put it: “Ye are God’s husbandry’’— 
God’s farm, farm-making, farm-working. This rude Corinth- 
ian heart is to be brought in and subdued, so as to bear a 
gospel harvest. “‘ Ye are God’s building’’—an edifice erected, 
constructed—not an outgrowth, but here an erection, here a 
construction, here something done by an outside power— 
God’s building, a house in which God shall be at home—a 
house built around the idea of God’s presence, characters in 
which we are to live with God, which shall have all the 
sacredness of the inner sanctuary, and all the familiarity 
of the home. ‘ Ye are God’s building.” ‘ 

And pause now a moment to see how adroitly the apostle 
lets down these conceited Corinthians in the putting of the 
text itself. The text, back of our English version, has this 
suggestive thing in it. In this short sentence there is no 


784 CHARLES H. FOWLER. 


word at al] to represent these Corinthians who are contend- 
ing about men and about their personal advancement, but 
the name of God is put in full three times, and the Corinth- 
ians are only drawn in by the person of the verb; these 
conceited men are left out, and the Almighty is made the 
controlling thought of the text, and yet the copartnership 
is maintained—a copartnership in which all the power is of 
God, and all the glory belongs to God, and yet the power 
so adjusted that all—absolutely all—the responsibility rests 
with us. These are the conditions of our copartnership. 

This law of human and divine action—co-labor, laboring 
together—is a universal law. You cannot touch humanity 
anywhere but you strike this truth. It makes up the warp 
and woof of nature, of our lives, of society: it is every- 
where divine power and human agency—it is a combination 
of these forces. One fact indicating that is this :— 

Either element, when left to itself, fails. Men have blun- 
dered concerning this subject, as concerning all other sub- 
jects, and whenever they have left out the divine element 
in their calculations, they have failed. Mere humanitarian 
systems that did not or ought not to pretend to be religions, 
but only systems of philosophy, built not upon the divine 
Christ, but upon the human Jesus, have demonstrated that, 
leaving out the supernatural power, they have failed to ac- 
complish the supernatural work. They move among men 
doing a kind of human work, but they do not move among 
men doing the divine work. They somehow demonstrate 
that their systems are circumscribed by the bounds of their 
nationalities, and their influence seldom survives the sexton 
who digs their unwilling graves; that which is born of the 
flesh proves to be flesh; the fountain not bubbling on the 
summit, the stream never rises there. Having no power 
from on high, they necessarily fail to lift up fallen hu- 
“manity. 

And in accordance with this fact of the failure of the 
elements, when separated, we find this one thing in history: 


DIVINE AND HUMAN COPARTNERSHIP. 785 


the richest and choicest peoples—the peoples who have most 
culture and thought and education and intellectual power, 
are the peoples who have utterly died out of history; so 
that the perfect languages are the dead languages. 

And parallel with this we find another fact as startling, 
that the low animal peoples who live a kind of sensual or 
animal life, who have no great outlook of thought, who 
mount to no summits of culture, who sink to no depth of 
philosophy—these are the peoples who live on and on 
through centuries. Humanity accepted as a fallen fact 
persists like an animal instinct through the ages; but when- 
ever she undertakes to rise, she wears herself out by the 
endeavor. _ Leaving out the divine power, the elements fail 
because they are separated. 

And the divine element fails as utterly when separated 
from the human. It seems to inhere in the nature of the 
case that they cannot believe except they hear, and they 
cannot hear except one be sent. And here is the human 
agency. The man who can sit down in a leaky boat and 
fold his arms, thinking that if it is the Lord’s great will 
that he should be saved he will be saved, will find that God’s 
great will will be done, and that it is his great will that he 
should go to the bottom, because God has no better use for 
such aman. And the churches which undertake to let the 
Lord do all their work are the churches whose work will 
never—no, never be done. The divine element in itself fails 
in the work. It seems to me conclusive, then, that, as the 
elements, when séparated, fail, there is, in the purpose of 
God concerning it, this anticipated and necessary union. 

Take another fact. See how God works in things. It is 
one vast plan spread out before us in such a way that we 
may, by chance, avail ourselves of the energies of nature to 
do our work, to carry our burdens. God turns the great 
wheels always one way, so that we may see them and catch 
the secret, find how they move, and throw about them the 

3D : 


786 CHARLES H. FOWLER. 


belts of our. creative and inventive thought, and thus, claim- 
ing our possible copartnership, cause things to come to pass. 
He gives us bodies, possible strength, time, opportunity, 
brain, but these, in themselves, are not enough. Left to them- 
selves, they produce either the sloven or the savage—either 
the Bushman or the Sioux. Civilization means more than 
these. It means very much labor in the shop, very much 
weariness in the study, very much anguish in the closet, and 
very much patient on-going after the seers and the prophets. 
God gives soil, sunlight, moisture, nourishment, germs, but 
these are not enough. Left to themselves, they produce 
thistles and noxious weeds. There is required also your 
thought and nerve and plan and skill, and then you and God 
can produce a loaf of bread. 

You wanted this church. God gave the stone and the 
. clay, and the iron and the lumber, but not here. The stone 
was in the quarry, the clay was in the bank, the iron was in 
the vein, the lumber was in the forest, and you know what it 
has cost to put them together. : 

And this same old law holds as firmly over character as it 
does over materials. This poor man has fallen into bad 
habits, and staggered out of the way and gotten down into 
the street, until the filth is upon his garments. Now, there 
is no process by which he may come back to respecta- 
bility that is not based on his individual struggle. Some- 
times gold dust thrown into the air may dim or divert the 
public eye, but soon that is past, and the unfortunate victim 
is left to hew his way up to respectability at the hardest. 

These are but material and social applications of a law 
that finds its first legitimate and original cause, the reason 
of its existence, back in our moral nature. If, then, we do 
actually find that, in the world about us, God does so work in 
the system of copartnership with us, need we be alarmed, 
overwhelmed, if he requires us in his spiritual interest, in 
our spiritual lives, to obey the same rule? 


DIVINE AND HUMAN COPARTNERSHIP. — 787 


I: 


Take another fact that looks to this copartnership—the 
Fact of destitution, anywhere—poverty—poverty of purse or 
of spirits: all poverty is inexplicable, except on the supposi- 
tion of this copartnership. There is a beautiful island— 
Hrin, the island of the heart—and yet her children actually 
gnaw their bones in famine. No fault of God. He loves 
Hrin; he loves all men. Yonder, in the great valley be- 
tween the mountains, waves a harvest large enough for all 
men. It needs the human instrumentalities to take yonder 
harvest to yonder starving ones. There, in the alley, comes 
up a boy, dandled on the lap of corruption, fed on vice, 
graduated in a brothel, trained up a thief, and turned out a 
cut-throat. He has no fair chance. No fault of God. God 
loves that little cut-throat as much as he does anybody else 
in his universe. Not his fault that he has no chance. Look, 
there are wide zones of fertile land, upon which all the cities 
may scatter their victims into freedom. God has provided 
for them. It needs the human intervention to make the 
right distribution. And then there are vast Christless em- 
pires which never heard of him. JBut it is no fault of God. 
He loves them; he is no respecter of persons; he willeth 
not the death of him that dieth, but he would that all men 
would turn and live. No Christ has touched their shores ; 
no prophet has cried in their ears; yet it is no fault of God. 
Fault there must be somewhere. It is only a demonstra- 
tion of the human element in the copartnership. _ If God 
could have his way, to-morrow’s sun would not rise over an 
unsaved sinner in all the universe. If God’s way could be 
carried out, every lost profligate would be accepted of God, 
for ‘Jesus Christ, by the grace of God, tasted death for 
every man.” Yea, more than that. If God could have his 
way, the very last prison-pen in all the universe would be 
open, and the very last mourning and sorrowing one would 
be lifted up into peace and purity and joy unspeakable. But 
there is in the way, the human element in the copartnership. 


788 CHARLES H. FOWLER. 


There is a human will in the path, and human rebellion in 
the way. No fault of God. ) 

Take another fact looking to this copartnership. All our 
Llessings come to us through human instrumentality. We 
have some elements—we have air and time and life, a few 
things from God directly, or apparently directly ; and yet 
when you come back to them you find that we are, after all, 
related to them through some human instrumentality. How 
crude they are as they come from the Almighty !—hardly 
worth having. Indeed, it is not possible for us to have them 
without human instrumentality. Life itself is such a little, 
helpless thing; yet Jittle as it is, it comes to us only by the 
tenderness of maternal love. We receive it through ma- 
ternal agencies. And what a long journey it is from the help- 
lessness of that little babe, only a lump of possibilities on 
the lap of its mother, to that stalwart man! It is a long 
way, and much drilling and wearing along the way to realize 
the power. 

Take this revelation of God, God’s truth, his Word, too 
grand for our invention, and too vital for us to dispense with ; 
and yet what a human thing itis! Here you can find full- . 
length portraits of the prophets and the seers. Here you 
can come in contact with living men—God-anointed, God- 
appointed, God-smitten men; yet men sent out to be the 
light of the world. This book, with the divine element left 
out of it, is like the sculptor’s studio—full of statues, 
stone men; but when it accepts the divine element, these 
statues catch the inspiration of life, and go forth—not gods, 
but men, speaking to us God’s secret by human lips, and 
yet with human speech. 

The highest and the last demonstration of this is seen in 
the incarnation itself. It seems to me that when God would 
bring his salvation into the world—what he wanted was sal- 
vation—and when he would bring it into the world, he had 
to incarnate it in his own Son; he could come to us only in 


DIVINE AND HUMAN COPARTNERSHIP. 789 


the Son of Man. It is the only salvation that could by any 
chance reach us at all, if you will think about it. It seems 
as if somehow the remedial agencies came down into our 
weakness and touched them into power, so that these weak 
and broken elements rise up apparently instead of being 
lifted up, lifted up in fact; yet not by an outside power, 
but by an inside power, that has been catalogued with the 
fallen forces of humanity, so that Jesus enters into our 
humanity, is born under the law, is made like unto his breth- 
ren, and is obedient unto death, that he may come even to 
us, and give salvation that is in us and of us, yet super- 
natural. 

Look at these terms a little. ‘Ye are God’s husbandry,” 
and the work there indicated shows a little something of 
what we are to do, and how much you need this divine help 
in the case. ‘The old nature is to be grubbed out by a kind 
of clearing-up process. The old forest that occupies the soil 
and shuts out the light and prevents the good seed from get- 
ting root or nourishment, is to be taken down and trans- 
formed, through divine agencies, into a protection and defence 
for the heavenly crop; and this is no small work. This 
means earnest endeavor. Try it. Put yourself at the work. 
Stand against the flood. Run against the tempest. See 
how weak and utterly helpless you are without the divine 
power. And yet this work is to be done by you, and through 
you, God helping. 

I think the figure looks, a little farther on, to budlding 
your characters. And this to me seems the core of this 
whole question—the building up of your characters into the 
likeness of God. Not by a mere human endeavor, but 
by the human strengthened and made out by the divine; 
not that you can do it alone and unfold from within you.that 
which shall be pleasing to God, but that, with the divine 
power, every one of you can build up your character so that 

it shall be acceptable to God in our Lord Jesus Christ. 


790 CHARLES H. FOWLER. 


This sweeps out over- the whole field of our character and 
destiny. And just here, let me say, we are liable, in touch- 
ing any of these points and discussing questions of this kind, 
to go too far, or lose sight too much of the other side of the 
question. The problem of a religious life is made up of 
many equations and as many factors. Your religious char- 
acter is many-sided. The Gospel comes to you many-sided. 
Here, seen from this stand-point, it is all divine; and seen 
from another, it is all human. Here it is all devotion; 
there it is all activity. Here it has the breath and the bil- 
low of emotion; there it glistens in the cold serenity of the 
intellections. Now we see it with the grip of a syllogism 
holding the convictions of the intellect; then it comes in 
among the intuitions, warming by the breath of inspiration. 
Now it stands erect, holding the reins of eternal obligation ; 
next it settles upon the soul with dew like peace of heaven, 
with the impleadings of divine mercy, and thus wins us to 
God. It is many-sided. It is—Work out your faith, from 
your fingers’ ends. It is one perfect system. 

The foundation of our hope is salvation by faith only. 
It could not have been otherwise, even if God had not said: 
‘By grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of 
yourselves ; it is the gift of God.’ Yes, the fact that eter- 
nal life is an enfinite gift puts it outside the possibility of our 
earning it. What we earn is limited and measured by day 
or hour; but God’s gift, eternal life, is infinite, and so 
necessarily a gift; and if a gift, necessarily to be taken by 
faith only, so that when the bond for the ten thousand talents 
is pressed for collection, then there is no footing at all left 
for works; it is only, Believe—solely by faith. And this 
freeness makes it a gospel indeed. It would be no gospel 
at all but for this. It is necessary that the system that meets 
us should be capable of delay, that we might put it off and 
off and off, even till life’s latest hour, and then, by divine 
power, through faith, take life and live. 


DIVINE AND HUMAN COPARTNERSHIP. 791 


Aye, if I didn’t believe that the very lowest mortal on 
earth—the vilest and lowest—even though he should stand 
on the very crumbling verge of time, falling headlong into 
the pit, if he would but look once toward Christ, and offer 
believing prayer, might be saved, I would never enter the 
pulpit again. It is because we need something to repair all 
our failures that we must have a system that comes only by 
faith. 

Now, then, having the one point of our pardon settled by 
Faith, it seems to me the power of that faith must come out 
through works—divine aid, human activity. Coming through 
our characters, then, it is not possible for God to save us 
without our activity. A salvation that would fall upon us 
from heaven would only crush us, not cure us. God slays 
not our power, but our sins; he saves us, not the remnants 
of us; he saves our forces, our humanity, our will, our 
ability to feel and act and be. He saves us, not slays us, 
by a system with which we have nothing todo. It seems to 
me—though it is a startling fact, it is true—that a man, full 
grown, lost in the solitude of his sin, plunging on in the 
loneliness of his suffering, a dethroned king, yet a king 
crowned and enthroned above his own wretchedness and sin 
—that such a being is worth infinitely more in the universe 
of God than a whole army of shining puppets, polished by 
no purpose of their own. 

We are sometimes told that God might have sent angels 
to do this work he has left in our hands; that the work of 
saving men might have been committed to orders of life above 
us. I am not prepared to say that it is impossible, yet I 
am prepared to say that it is not thinkable to me. It is not 
possible in the light of thought. In the first place, it is not 
something to be put upon us, but something to be wrought 
within us; not an outside cloak covering over our old cor- 
ruptions, but an inside life and power—something that takes 
the whole being and occupies every part and fibre; and so, 


792 CHARLES H. FOWLER. 


to be anything at all, must be worked out through the man 
himself, and cannot be put upon the man from the outside. 
Horace Bushnell has made a statement which is liable to be 
misunderstood, but which contains a substantial truth. When 
a bush is bent down in a forest, nature does not send another 
bush, nor yet a tree, to pick up the bush, but puts life and 
power into the bush itself. So it seems to me God operates 
upon us by his grace. He comes with his supernatural 
power into us, and works along the normal lines of our 
activity, and thus enables us to rise into his likeness. 

And then, if there were any possibility that angels could 
come, and by swarming the whole vault above us into the 
brightest glory, and crowding in untold millions into the 
path of each wanderer, could hasten forward the salvation 
of one single sinner, the infinite love of God, that stops at 
nothing, would, of necessity, crowd all angels into this world 
of ours, and put an immediate stop to sin. But it is not in 
the nature of the case. We misapprehend the nature of 
sin itself. It is not something that may be put to death by 
an outside being; it can be killed only when the creature 
from whose bosom it leaps, and in whose purpose it lives, 
becomes the executioner. And we mistake the character of 
the work itself. It is not outside work, done for something 
else and somebody else; it is an inside work, done in and for 
us as the end. We do not work like hirelings, we are sons; 
we work not for wages, but an inheritance—an inheritance 
not to be received after some grave has been filled, but that 
is to be received here, and under God, and with God, to be 
worked out by us for the home yonder. 

This outside work, pushing forward the interests of the 
Church, building edifices, attending prayer-meetings, going 
after the poor, and other Christian work that comes upon a 
Christian’s heart that seems to be outside, may be, after all, 
only one field for his development. Yonder is a man who 
goes into a shop to make an engine. Unwittingly, he de- 


DIVINE AND HUMAN COPARTNERSHIP. 793 


velops his arm, fills out his chest. Yonder man goes into a 
gymnasium, swings dumb-bells, climbs ropes, leaps bars, 
pounds bags of sand, and the like. Wittingly, he develops 
his chest and arms. Now, in God’s plan, both these sys- 
tems work in together. Many a thing seems like making 
the engine, doing some outside thing, yet actually it is the 
only way by which we can be brought on in this co-operating 
work with God. And it is just here that the necessity is 
put upon us to do so much outside work for God; and the 
man who does it—who carries the burdens, who gets under 
the tremendous pressure, who agonizes in the darkness—is 
not the man to be pitied; but the man who does not do it— 
the man who dodges—he is the man to be pitied; the sick 
man, whom the Lord has to nurse and lead on to heaven, 
and whom he stands a great chance of losing before he gets 
there with him, he is the man to be pitied, because it is in 
this process of co-operation with God that this poor material 
is fashioned up into a man, then a saint, then an angel. 
There is another thing that is true. If this fact of co- 
operation is true, then Christ's kingdom goes forward or is 
retarded, according as we are active or negligent. I think 
that is an inevitable sequence from the proposition that we 
are co-workers with him. Then, what follows? Just as the 
falling of an autumn leaf will jar the most distant sun, so 
the slightest faltering of even the weakest and lowest saint 
holds back the coming of the kingdom of Christ. Look at 
the case a little. There is no lack of love on his part. He 
has come for the sole purpose of saving men. He came into 
the world at the earliest hour. All through the ages he 
carried humanity on his heart, crying: “‘ O that there were 
such an heart in you that you would hear my voice!” long- 
ing to come always from the moment of the first transgres- 
sion, anxious to come to the oppressed and sorrowing and 
wounded, to comfort the mourning, and bind up their 
wounds. And this, of necessity, in the nature of infinite 


794 CHARLES H. FOWLER. 


love. He could not-have infinite love and hold back any- 
where. It must press out at the earliest chance. So he 
waits, and waits, and waits for his people. He waited four 
thousand years for a virgin to say: “ Thy will be done.” I 
doubt not he waited a thousand years for grand old Martin 
Luther, and that he stood and watched and looked for twelve 
centuries for the coming of John Wesley; and to-day he 
waits, and his cause hangs back, and his kingdom is delayed, 
because we, his children, allow our hands to hang down. He 
is here for the salvation of all men, coming to establish a 
kingdom of righteousness, and it delays because we lack 
faith and devotion and consecration. The thought to me is 
oppressive. We are so related to God’s kingdom that our 
lack of prayer and faith and sacrifice actually retards the 
coming of the kingdom. 

_ With this immense responsibility, as we might expect, 
there comes also a commensurate dignity. It could not be 
otherwise. And yet it is to me incomprehensible. We can 
only look at it a little. Itis amazing to me that such a 
being as Jesus Christ, full of his infinite love, clothed in 
light, the first-born of every creature, by whom all things 
consist, King of kings and Lord of lords, invisible, immortal, 
eternal, God over all, blessed for evermore—it is to me in- 
conceivably grand that such a being as Jesus Christ has 
actually burst into our humanity, and is here ready to work, 
here for our salvation; but more than this, he takes us, 
little and weak and frail as we are, into copartnership with 
himself, and we, little as we are, are under his divine com- 
mission. And more than this, we are sent out to have his 
character, to be like him, to repeat his wonderful words, to 
walk among the sorrowing, and tell of his compassion. This 
to me is the infinite thing. All else in life is but as dust 
and ashes, and the chance of standing for him among the 
dying and sinning, and there crying, “Behold, behold the 
Lamb !”’ is more than all else in this life. It seems to me, if 
we could but see the dignity of the work he has given us, 


DIVINE AND HUMAN COPARTNERSHIP. 795 


its power, depth, height, glory, irresistible victory, divine 
radiance, we would go though we starved; we would work 
though it were a thousand years; we would pray on 
while we had breath. It seems to me, in this fact, our 
relationship to Christ is the highest of all possible dignities ; 
and yet we have such a miserably poor way of measuring 
dignity, getting at the real power in the case, we can, at 
best, only get little glimpses, and only guess concerning it. 
It is something, too, to be a citizen of this republic ; it 
means something, though we cannot comprehend it. That 
poor soldier-boy may not know the day of the republic’s 
birth, nor the number of her commonwealths, nor count the 
stars of her flag even, and yet he wears the sign of the 
nation’s power; and it is something to be a citizen of this 
republic, because there is no land on all the earth, no dun- 
geon anywhere under the sun, no island in the sea, where 
prince or potentate can harm a hair of his head with impu- 
nity. Let the despot touch him, and forty millions of citi- 
zens rise for his defence! I remember reading awhile ago, 
how that, yonder in South America, a poor Norwegian 
sailor, by some transgression of the local laws, was involved 
in serious trouble. The petty government tried him for con- 
spiracy ; they found him guilty, and sentenced him to death. 
He did not understand his crime, nor his relations to their 
government; he only knew the horror that was coming upon 
-him. But the ministers of the governments of England and - 
of the United States interfered in his behalf; they pro- 
tested; the petty authorities insisted ; the ministers forbade 
the execution, but the local government took the victim out, 
and drew up the line of soldiers for his execution, when the 
representatives of these two great governments, taking the 
flags. of the two countries, went in before the manwand 
wrapped around him the Stars and Stripes and England's 
flag, and the soldiers dared not shoot. It meant something 
to be a citizen of the United States, or Great Britain; but 
infinitely more than this is it to be a citizen of that country 


796 CHARLES H. FOWLER. 


beyond. We are brought into fellowship with God, and 
permitted to work in copartnership with him; and though 
little, and ignorant, and unable to count his stars, nor tell 
his glory, nor know the time of his coming, yet we are in 
copartnership with him, and his flag is over us, and his 
angels are about us, and absolutely nothing can, by any 
chance, harm us. God’s infinite love comes in just back of 
our weakness. He has given his only begotten Son for us, 
and with him will he not freely give us all things? This 
tenderness comes to us so that we may know that we are his, 
and kept by his almighty power. 

I remember once standing by the surging billows, all one 
weary day, and watching for hours a father struggling 
beyond in the breakers for the life of his son. They came 
slowly toward the breakers on a piece of wreck, and as they 
came the waves turned over the piece of float, and they were 
lost. Presently we saw the father come to the surface and 
clamber alone to the wreck, and then saw him plunge off 
into the waves, and thought he was gone; but in a moment 
he came back again, holding his boy. Presently they struck 
another wave, and over they went; and again they repeated 
the process. Again they went over, and again the father 
rescued his son. By and by, as they swung nearer the 
shore, they caught on a snag just out beyond where we 
could reach them, and for a little time the waves went over 
them there, till we saw the boy in the father’s arms hanging 
down in helplessness, and knew they must be saved soon or 
be lost; and I shall never forget the gaze of that father. 
And as we drew him from the devouring waves, still clinging 
to his son, he said, ‘‘ That’s my boy, that’s my boy!” and 
half frantic, as we dragged them up the bank, he cried all 
the time: ‘That’s my boy, that’s my boy!” And so I 
have thought, in hours of darkness, when the billows roll 
over me, the great Father is reaching down to me, and, 
taking hold of me, crying, “‘ That’s my boy!” and I know I 
am safe. 


el 
THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD. 


WALDEN. 

[Rev. TReapweLt Wapen, author of the meritorious and popular 
‘Sunday School Prayer Book,” and several other works, was born at 
Walden, New York, in 1830, and graduated at the Protestant Episco- 
pal General Theological Seminary in 1853. In addition to pastoral 
duties, he has contributed largely to religious and other periodical 
literature. ‘‘Our English Bible and its Ancestors,” now passing 
through the press of Porter & Coates, is a clear and fascinating history 
—generous in its praises of the great merits of the ‘ Authorized Ver- 
sion,” and as frank in admitting the necessity for its revision. Mr. 
- Walden is now Rector of St. Paul’s Cathedral, Indianapolis. } 


“A man’s heart deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps.” 
—Prov. xvi. 9. 


I BRING before you to-day a subject which touches so nearly 
the heart and life, that, of all religious subjects, a more than 
usual interest centres in it. It is that which human beings 
find most occasion to ponder over, which they most desire to 
understand, and are most anxious to believe in. And yet it 
is that which is viewed with greater indistinctness, greater 
misgiving and doubt than any other truth which has descended — 
out of heaven from God. 

No other truth is more clear to the understanding, none 
has had more express revelation, and yet because of its vital 
nearness to human interests, it suffers this singular eclipse 
of faith. This is not strange—for what we have most reason 
to wish true we naturally most fear may be false. ‘The more 
our happiness is bound up with it, the more solicitude do we 
feel that our dependence be not a delusion. 


The subject I refer to is Tun SpzcraL PROVIDENCE OF Gop. 
(797) 


798 TREADWELL WALDEN. 


Is there anything to our hearts nearer? Is there anything 
to our minds sometimes further off ? 

When we speak of the Providence of God, when we give 
Him that beneficent and all-expressive name, we mean that 
the Great First Cause is not a cold and distant Force, but a 
personal Being, working under and behind the laws of His 
Universe, and in arelation to His creatures which partakes 
of the nature of a Fatherhood—a Fatherhood of infinite 
meaning, a Fatherhood so profound, so minute, so far- 
reaching, so complete, that the human relation ‘of parental 
love and care, strong as it is, is but a dim shadowy gleam 
beside that ineffable Light. If we, poor, imperfect beings, 
_know how to give good gifts to our children, how much more 
does our heavenly Father know how to provide for us! 
This is our Saviour’s own declaration. It is His own amazing 
. projection of what an infinite Father God must be, if He be 
in that relation to His creatures at all. 

It is now my object, so far as I may, to give as definite 
form to this all too shadowy shape of God, as we have reason 
and revelation for, in order that the Comforter may truly 
come, that our lives may have the immense consolation, and 
our hearts the sublime consciousness that God is daily walk- 
ing with us, an infinite Fatherhood by our side, in unceasing 
love, solicitude, and care perpetually hedging us about. 

When this subject comes directly to an intelligent, thinking 
mind, the first misgiving which would seem to resolve God 
into a shadow rises from a consideration of the emmensity of 
the Universe. This was the thought which momentarily shook 
the faith of one of the first intellects of the age in the Gospel, 
(Daniel Webster). So essential was the question with him that 
he caused the record of his mental conflict to be graven on 
the granite of his tomb, thus :— 

Philosophical argument, especially that drawn from the 
vastness of the Universe in comparison with the apparent in- 
significance of this globe, has sometimes shaken my reason 


THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD. 799 


for the faith that is in me; but my heart has always assured 
and reassured me that the Gospel of Jesus Christ must be a 
Divine Reality. The Sermon on the Mount cannot be a 
merely human production. This belief enters into the very 
depth of my conscience. The whole history of man proves 
it.” 

Would God, he asked, do so much as send his beloved Son 
to die for the inhabitants of such an infinitesimal planet as 
this? And these just quoted words are the balances, as it 
were, in which he weighed the great consideration. In the 
one scale the immeasurable vastness of space in the Universe ; 
in the other the equal vastness of meaning in the great Utter- 
ance of our Saviour, and before the weightiness of its deep 
things of God, as dropped from Christ’s eternal fingers, the 
scale of the material flies upward, the ponderous Universe is 
found wanting ! 

So in the contemplation of any other and lesser form of 
Providence. ‘The more minute the interposition the more 
doubtful becomes the mind as to whether it can really be. 
And yet it ought to be easy for any mind to reason itself 
clear of this superficial embarrassment. If God could and 
would come as Christ to this infinitesimal world, He certainly 
ean and will come to any extent nearer, and personally inter- 
pose to secure the utmost infinitesimal interest in it. There 
can be no limit to His care in whatsoever direction it may 
proceed forth. The man who is convinced of one must be 
convinced of the other also. If you believe that God would 
give such testimony as the sending of His Son, to the im- 
portance of this world in His Divine estimation, an impor- 
tance which does not consist in material extent, then you 
cannot stop short of the belief that every other form of His 
Providence, however minute, is not only possible but inevi- 
table. He may as soon reach down His Almighty arm to 
guide the tottering steps of a little child as send His angel 
to save a falling world. 


800 TREADWELL WALDEN. 


The doctrine of the Redemption of mankind is pre-emi- 
nently a doctrine of Providence. It foreshadows, of itself, 
the whole character of the Divine Being in that relation. 
For in it He works to usward not only in the great gift to 
the world of His Son; but He enters into the recesses of 
every individual heart, ministering, strengthening, and con- 
soling, as the Holy Spirit. If any one questions whether 
God would concern Himself with human affairs, the case 
might be rested here, in the fearful alternative it leaves. To 
deny the doctrine of Providence is to deny the existence of 
the Gospel, and to say that there is no such thing as the love 
of God in the world. Is any one ready to sit down in this 
desolation ? 

But, apart from this deduction from the Gospel revelation, 
there are some natural considerations underlying it, which 
after a while receive its great confirmation. Recur then to 
the question: In view of the immensity of the Universe, 
whether God would probably interpose at all in the affairs 
of such an insignificant atom as this world materially is? 
The mind which is familiar with the infinite distances which 
spread out beyond the stars, and realizes that no matter how 
far exploration may sweep, no wall can rise, no limitation 
be, that space is endless, boundless, measureless,--the mind 
familiar with this realizes that even such a ponderous planet 
as this world seems to be, is, in its relation to all that, simply 
nothing. And yet take the whole solar system, and put it 
in the same ratio to infinitude,—is it not equally small? 
Take the whole visible firmament which encloses this globe 
like a blue sphere studded with constellations, take every 
glorious sun on which the telescope has fixed its piercing 
eye, gather the whole immensity together, and put it over 
against illimitable space, and is it not equally insignificant 
with this little earth? It must be so. There can be no 
great, no small in the eyes of God, on the scale of great and 
small by which man measures. The conception of importance 


THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD. 801 


in the Divine Mind must depend on other relations and 
principles of comparison than we wot of. 

And as it is with space, so it must be with number. Infi- 
nite myriads of creatures, countless grades.of intelligences, 
cannot lessen the importance of the single individual any- 
where. Millions of Gabriels cannot by excess of archangelic 
light obscure the outline of one single human being in the 
field of the Divine contemplation. Nor can all the splendors 
of Heaven, in all their infinitudes of existence and joy, shut 
out by comparison this humble and sinful earth from our 
heavenly Father’s radiant door. 

Infinite space, infinite numbers, infinite conditions of being 
and glory, only bring back the mind to the individual, and 
to a wonderment as to what God’s measurement and standard 
of importanceis. The whole intellect comes oscillating back 
from its sweeping search for God in the outer Universe, and 
finds itself swinging into the opposite Universe of the Spirit. 
The alternative is clear. God is among us. God lives for 
the individual. His Providence moves to the one. It con- 
centrates upon the infinitesimal, not, as we are so apt to think, 
goes expanding upon the infinite. There is no limit to the 
minuteness of His care. It must be in: the order of His 
infinite nature to go into infinite detail. ‘Are not two 
sparrows sold for a farthing? and not one of them shall fall 
to the ground without your Father.” ‘The very hairs of 
your head are all numbered.” ‘‘ Behold the fowls of the 
air; for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into 
barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye 
not much better than they? Consider the lilies of the field, 
how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin; and yet 
I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not 
arrayed like one of these. Wherefore if God so clothe the 
grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into 
- the oven, shall He not much more clothe you, O ye of little 
faith?’ ‘‘Hxcept the Lord build the house, their labor is 

26 3B 


802 TREADWELL WALDEN. 


but vain that build it. Except the Lord keep the city, the 
watchman waketh but in vain.’ So pervading, so minute, is 
this Providential oversight, that nothing is beyond His inter- 
position,—not even the fortuitous things of every day, those 
broken links of change and chance which seem to lie outside 
the endless chain of cause and effect. It is written that even 
‘‘ the dot is cast into the lap, but the whole disposing thereof 
is of the Lord.” 

In close connection with this clear movement of God 
towards us comes another consideration. His whole character 
as a Creator, and the whole order of Creation, foreshadow 
Him as a Providence. Every work of His hands is stamped 
with His lineaments as a personal and providing Being. 
Take, for illustration, our own physical frame. What could 
bespeak more the superintending, protecting, guarding, nur- 
. turing character of Him who madeit? Look at our outward 
furnishing. See this strange and convoluted thing the brain, 
so full of our deep, mysterious life, the throne of the intellect, 
the closet of the affections, the shrine of the soul. The pres- 
sure of an infant’s finger would paralyze it. A blow would 
destroy this glorious organism, and drive its spirit forth. 
Who built up round it an ivory wall of protection, who arched 
over these wondrous hemispheres, and made the seat of our 
consciousness the very citadel of our being? Look at these 
windows through which the mind gazes out into the world, and 
through which the world sends its myriad subtile messengers 
winged for communion with the inner spirit. Who set them 
for protection far back within those deep embrasures, beneath 
“‘this dome of thought and palace of the soul” ? Who hung 
before them these fringed curtains, to veil them alike from 
the splendors of the sun, and from the motes floating in the 
sunbeam? Stretch forth your hand!—that marvellous 
mechanism of skill and power! Who provided it with the 
manifold means for its endless offices? A great surgeon has 
written an immortal book on the extraordinary capacities hid 


THE PROVIDENCE OF-GOD. 803 


in the human hand. Who furnished it? Who, but He “that 
taketh up the isles as a very little thing” and ‘“ measureth 
the waters in the hollow of His hand.”’ Who gave the seed 
its husk, the tree its bark, the fish its shell, the beast its skin, 
for protecting defences? What is that order which brings a 
congress of nature around each little buried seed, to tear 
away its shroud, and open the doors for its resurrection !—the 
rain and the sun visiting it like twin angels from above, the 
secret powers beneath touching it with life, and urging it 
forth into the upper air. And behold the bounties of nature 
everywhere, the splendors of earth, and sea, and sky, tribu- 
tary to man! Who set even those immensities, the stars, to 
shine from age to age, like guardian spirits, and sentinels of 
Heaven at their stations, at once the outposts of a greater 
life, and the lights of this nether world? The motions and 
arrangements of a Providing God are all around us. The 
essence of Creation is Providence. Creation is the adum- 
bration of God, as providing for us, and for ever moving 
down toward us, in minute and constant care. - We cannot 
fix His limit. There can be none to His loving-kindness 
and tender mercy. It is over al/ His works. 

We find another declarative fact in the world, which 
brings God even nearer in this beneficent form of His being. 
The very way in which human history has unfolded itself 
has been on this order of infinite providing. ‘Time is full of 
especial men—providential characters—men rising up here 
and there to fulfil a purpose. Adam created to populate the 
globe. Noah saved to rescue the race. Abraham chosen 
to preserve the knowledge of God. Moses appointed to 
organize the people of God. So all over the earth. Great 
monarchs, great warriors, great statesmen, great inventors, 
great discoverers. Alexander, Cesar, Cromwell, Napoleon, 
Columbus, Washington—every one an apostle of a peculiar 
mission. ‘God said, ‘Let Newton be!’ and all was light !”’ 
Every one has dene his appointed part in the world’s pro- 


804 TREADWELL WALDEN. 


gress. We easily see these conspicuous giants. But is 
God’s equipment confined to them? Has not every one of 
us his own part in the world’s great order? If it is true in 
such large historic instances, it must be equally so in every- 
day individuals, for the same God worketh to usward. 
“ Kvery man’s life is a plan of God,” exclaims an eminent 
theologian of this day. What Christ said of Himself each 
of us also may say of his own self: ‘‘ To this end was I born, 
and for this cause came I into the world.” There is no one 
that lives, however humble, who does not carry this Provyi- 
dential ordinance in his breast, and its outward guardianship 
around him, until his end be accomplished. We are lesser 
mirrors of our Master. He was the pre-eminent instance 
of a life on a Providential order. ‘He was furnished for His 
work. We also are furnished for ours. The power of God 
enveloped Him from the manger to the sepulchre. It 
envelopes us also from the cradle to the graye. His life is 
the nearest, most touching evidence of God’s love and care 
reaching down into the very depths of our hearts, and pre- 
paring us for the life eternal. Oh, wondrous argument ! 
‘*He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up 
for us all, how shall He not with Him freely give us all 
things?” The life that follows in His steps, that moves on 
His order of faith, and goodness, self-sacrifice, and the love 
of God, is a life along a pathway like His illuminated even 
if full of sorrow, and like His with everything working 
together finally for good. “‘ Humble yourselves, therefore, 
under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in 
due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He careth for 
you.” 

You are now prepared to see the fullness of meaning in 
these counsels : 

‘‘ Oast thy burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain 
thee.”” ‘ Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in Him, 
and He shall bring it to pass.” “Be careful for nothing ; 


THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD. 805 


but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanks- 
giving, let your requests be known unto God.” 

. No life is complete, no heart can be truly happy, which 
does not feel enclosed by the personal guardianship of God. 
It is the inmost principle of Christianity. The Gospel is its 
most triumphant manifestation, and of its golden threads the 
whole texture of Scripture is woven. Whatever happens, 
good or ill, it is of God, all in the compass of His design, 
under His vigilant consciousness, provided or permitted in 
His own wisdom for the best of purposes. I know how 
hard it is when the tide of adversity is bearing us down, 
wrecking our fortunes, washing away our works, disappoint- 
ing our expectations, or exciting us with apprehensions of 
disaster in the deep obscure to come, I know how hard it 
is for even the most faithful soul to keep up its tran- 
quillity and calmly rely on Jehovah-jireh. As we are apt 
to see things in this world, everything appears, in some 
respects, to be abandoned to its own natural course, and we 
sometimes to be abandoned with it. The misgiving heart 
inquires: Well God interpose? Can He come in among 
the operations of His own law, and stop its wheels or roll 
them back, and if He can, will he do it for me? Oh ye of 
little faith! When the storm raged on the lake of Galilee, 
and the waves threatened to engulf the little fishing-boat, 
and hardy seamen gave up in despair and cried out for fear, 
was not Providence behind those laws of the air in all its 
tumultuous fury? Was He not asleep in the hinder part of 
the ship? Did He not wake to the prayers of his followers, 
and bid the storm be still? The history of the soul is full 
of great interpositions worked in the eternal interest of 
man, and its daily experience is of constant inspirations, 
nurturing and guarding the inner life in the same everlast- 
ing interest. Are there none also in the outer life, minute 
and unseen, sustaining and protecting in His career even 
the humblest being among us? Remember, God works from 


806 TREADWELL WALDEN. 


His infinitude usward, in things temporal as well as things 
eternal. And remember, above all, that there is a power in 
man on earth which is correspondent to this will of God in 
Heaven. So imminent is Providence, and so near the pre- 
sence of God, that this puny being can summon the divine 
love to his aid whenever he will. The cry of the fishermen, 
‘“‘ Lord, save us! we perish!” brought Him instantly near, 
‘whose pavilion is in the dark waters, whose way is in the 
deep, and whose footsteps are not known.’’ And the Divine 
voice exclaims to us ‘Be careful for nothing; but im 
everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, 
let your requests be known unto God.” “Ask, and ye 
shall receive ; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be 
opened unto you.” It is in the power of prayer to bring 
the sheltering pinions of the Almighty Spirit around us, 
even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings. 
Man hath even this wondrous correspondence with God, 
and God this unspeakable expression of love and demonstra- 
tion of Providence to man! 

May I detain you a moment more to touch upon one 
other misgiving of the doubting spirit? Everything it says 
does not work together for good to those who are good. 
The wicked most often flourish; the righteous most often 
perish. The sinner lives in prosperity and joy; the saint is 
often overwhelmed with suffering and sorrow. It is even 
so. Thenecessity that it should be so is the overshadowing 
black cloud of this world. Solomon noted it ages ago. 
‘“‘ All things,” said he, “‘I have seen in the days of my 
vanity: there is a just man that perisheth in his righteous- 
ness, and there is a wicked man that prolongeth his life in his 
wickedness.’ The world is all too small, and time too short, 
for life to fully explain itself here. The great issues of 
Providence require more room than this little earth. Above 
this black cloud which lowers upon our life is the blue 
and glistering expanse of another world. ‘Our light 


THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD. 807 


afflictions are but for a moment :” There comes hereafter “a 
far exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” Trouble is 
sometimes disciplinary, sometimes otherwise necessary, and 
always Providential. The silver lining to that cloud is the 
gleaming promise of a life beyond, where suffering will turn 
into joy, and all things most sadly wrecked and oft irrepa- 
rable here, will find their happy compensation and repara- 
tion there. ‘All things w7ll work together for good to 
them who love God.” The goodness of Providence in this 
life guarantees a greater goodness in the life to come. Be 
patient, be faithful, and be resigned! ‘Trust thou in the 
Lord, and be doing good, and verily thou shalt be fed.” 

Let us live in the benignant light of this faith in a heavenly 
Fatherhood. ‘“O Lord,” said the prophet, “I know that 
the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man that 
walketh to direct his steps.’ ‘A man’s heart,” echoes the 
sage, ‘deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps.” 
Have we not felt sometimes a great Hand, let down and 
guiding us, as in our blindness we wandered astray! Have 
we not felt, yes even seen, that great shadowy Hand gently 
turning our course, giving our thoughts a diversion, or our 
affections an impulse, or illuminating us for a moment with 
some strange inspiration, so that we might turn aside from 
a pitfall of danger, or be led into a path of prosperity? We 
have all had that experience. We can look back and won- 
der at the occasions in this apparently inexorable world of 
cause and effect, and dreadful dislocation, when an inter- 
posing Hand has come tenderly down to guide our ignorant 
heart aright. What marvellous loving-kindness was it that 
once found you in terror, in torture, in distress, and that 
with its Almighty finger touched other events, and turned 
other minds, and arrested other movements, to set you free, 
to thank, and praise, and adore Him ! 

This is what we have to realize. That law and nature 
"may have their order, but that the Love of God is behind all. 


808 TREADWELL WALDEN. 


They move aside when His warm personality moves forward. 
“Call it fatalism,’’ wrote Dr. Kane, in the midst of the 
Arctic desolation, ‘“‘as you ignorantly may, there is that in 
the story of every eventful life which teaches the inefficiency 
of human means, and the present control of a Supreme 
Agency. See how the relief has come at the moment of 
extremity, in forms strangely unsought, almost at the time 
unwelcome ; see, still more, how the back has been strength- 
ened to its increasing burden, and the heart cheered by some 
unconscious influence of an Unseen Power.’ 

Oh! the cheering thought of being cared for by One 
infinite in-love for us, and as infinite in power to watch over 
and guard us. ‘‘The Lord is my light and my salvation: 
whom shall I fear! The Lord is the strength of my life, of 
whom shall I be afraid! In the time of trouble He shall 
hide me in His pavilion, He shall set me up upon a rock.” 


| vad Lg Be 
A CHRISTMAS SERMON. 


STOCKTON. 


[The life of Tuomas-Hrwuines Srocxron, D.D., of the Methodist 
Protestant Church, was a loving protest against the alienation of 
Christians by the bitterness of sectarianism. He was born at Mount 
Holly, New Jersey, in 1808, and entered the ministry in his twenty- 
first year. Asa preacher, he had rare gifts of eloguence—a keenly- 
sensitive emotional nature, great ideality, a creative imagination that 
gave heavenly truths and facts visible being, a spirituality of soul that 
made him unworldly and child-like. Thrice he was elected chaplain 
to the United States House of Representatives, and once to the Senate. 
His pastoral life was consecrated to the aim—noble, but now unat- 
tainable—of uniting ‘‘all who love the Lord Jesus Christ”? on the 
pure and catholic basis of faith implicit in the Holy Bible. He died 
in Philadelphia, October 9th 1868, and his church-building is now 
used by Spiritualists. Besides many fugitive pieces, he wrote: ‘ Ser- 
mons for the People,” “ Poems,” a series of the ‘‘ Paragraph Bible,” 
“Stand Up for Jesus,” a ballad commemorating the dying words of 
Rev. Dudley A. Tyng, and a posthumous volume, edited by his son, 
“The Book Above All.” By permission this Sermon is taken from 
the first work. | . 
“ Glory to God.’’—Luke ii. 14. 


I pivest myself of sensation. I withdraw myself even 
from the organs of intellect, sentiment, and affection. I 
abstract myself entirely from my physical constitution. I 
throw myself as a pure spirit into the original condition 
of immensity and eternity. God alone is there. I com- 
mune with him—spirit with spirit. I learn that he de- 
sires to share his infinite felicity with other consciousness than 
his own; and that his perfections have composed a theory of 
creation. What that theory is, I am not inforthed; but am 
satisfied that whenever it shall be disclosed it will glitter 


with all the insignia of his own sovereign distinctions. 
(809) 


810 DPHOMAS: Fy STOCKTON, 


Resuming my natural sympathies with the universe, I 
hold it in contemplation. I see its throne. God is on it. 
A heaven-full of cherubim and seraphim shine and sing 
around it. Beyond heaven, innumerable and magnificent 
systems of suns, comets, planets, and satellites, map off the 
darkness with golden lines of silent glory, and fill up the 
vacuum with the pulse, and thought, and action of life ever- 
lasting. The genius of the Mind of minds has made itself 
creative; the theory of eternity is embodied in time; and 
while God withholds not a smile at the faithfulness of the 
mirror before him, the mirror kindles with still more glowing 
beauty, reflecting his smile and the bliss by which it is 
brightened. 

I look again. The pavilion of God is closed, and his 
throne is shaded within its folds. At the sight, the multitude 
of worshippers suspend their praise. There is silence in 
heaven. The fellowship of anxiety prevails. Soon they 
descry afar off a returning host. As they come nearer, they 
are seen to consist of two orders. In one, every brow is 
crowned, and every crown adorned with a single star. 
In the other, a royal breast-plate gleams on every purple 
robe. ‘They are the morning stars and the sons of God. 
They went out to witness the creation of a world. As it 
rose, they welcomed it with ecstatic music. They saw it 
perfected ; saw it filled with living things; saw its paradise 
planted and burst into bloom; saw the manly majesty and 
womanly beauty of its wedded rulers; spent the first Sab- 
bath with them, and exulted in its holiness and bliss. But 
now they come, sad that they went. As they alight upon 
their native landscape, and fold their plumes among the 
myriads that gather around them, they tell the story of sin 
and death !—The whole multitude turn toward the throne, 
and wonder no more that the folds of the pavilion are drawn 
closely around it. 

Touched with a desire to behold the scene of guilt, and 


A CHRISTMAS SERMON. 811 


the parties involved in it, I leave the centre of creation and 
tend toward its circumference. I find a new system, and 
less magnificent than many I have passed. I alight upon its 
sun, and survey its comets, planets, and satellites. The 
planets are divided into three classes. Those in the first 
and remotest class are comparatively of great size, and 
beautifully adorned—one with belts, another with rings; 
one with four moons, another with six, another with seven. 
Those in the second and middle class are very small. The 
four in the third and nearest class are larger than the latter, 
but not one of them is even a tenth part as large as the 
largest of the first class. In this nearest class, I find 
the one I seek. It is the third from the sun, and moves 
along its orbit attended by a single moon. I descend upon 
it, and stand on a hill overlooking paradise. The garden of 
the Lord has not yet lost its loveliness, though its sinful 
tenants, ashamed and sorrowful, hide themselves in its deep- 
est shadows. 

I commune with my own thoughts. What is such a world 
as this, and who are these its occupants, that for anything 
done here, the hallelujahs of heaven should be hushed, and 
the throne of the universe be darkened? I am overwhelmed 
by the realization of the infinite holiness and sensibility of 
the divine law. There is no point in immensity where the 
finger of sin can touch it, without that touch being felt by 
him who ordained it. But why is it not avenged? Even 
as a bubble on one of its own streams, so might such a world 
dissolve and vanish. Why does it not? Ah me! I feel the 
cause. ‘Those timid criminals, trembling in the shade, have 
been quickened into immortality by the breath of God; and 
there is not an archangel in heaven whose spirit shall not 
fail with age as soon as theirs. Nor only so: but those.same 
fugitives are the representatives of innumerable millions of 
immortalities like themselves — enough, if they should be 
finally translated to heaven, to make it necessary to employ 


812 THOMAS H. STOCKTON. 


ages in preparing mansions to receive them. What now? 
Who shall terminate this awful suspense—and how shall it 
close ? 

I return whence I came. The cherubim and seraphim 
still stand, in adoring silence, in the strange twilight. Butlo! 
the pavilion opens—and all is glory! A feeling of intenser 
love comes with it, exciting a rarer rapture. The angel of 
the Lord appears at the right hand of the divine Presence. — 
He announces the adoption of a plan of redemption—the 
necessity of sacrifice to the accomplishment of the plan— 
the inability of any less than himself to make the sacrifice— 
and his own assumption of the obligation, to be discharged 
in due time. He summons the morning stars and the sons 
of God to attend him again; commands the resumption of 
worship by the multitude left before the throne, and comes 
away on his mission of mercy to this far-off sphere of 
sin. With the noblest burst of music that heaven ever 
heard still seeming to follow, I come with them, and hover 
in the midst of the holy train, while the angel of the Lord 
himself descends to the garden, calls the sinners before him, 
gives law to their changed estate, intimates the scheme of 
salvation, and sends them forth from their forfeited inherit- 
ance, to engage in toil, endure pain, and hopefully await 
the performance of his promise. 

The angel and his retinue re-ascend. +I remain to see the 
influence of the first death. Men multiply. Sins multiply. 
Sorrows multiply. All the good of the former estate 
perishes. As some noble tree, in the autumn, feels its life 
returning to the soil from which it rose in the spring, and 
sees its foliage withering and falling from its branches, till, 
one by one, they are all stripped and bare, so the spiritual 
life of man returns to its source in the Godhead, and all his 
beauty and glory fades and dies. ‘The tree is not hopeless. 
Another spring may warm its life up again, through every 
branch, and into every twig, and cover it all over with 


A CHRISTMAS SERMON. 813 


leaves, and blossoms, and fruit. And so, man is not 
hopeless. Redemption may hereafter invest him with fairer 
and richer felicities than he knew at first. But, for the 
present, he perishes. Intellect dies: reason, judgment, 
memory, imagination, knowledge, wisdom, truth, all die. 
Sentiment dies: gratitude, benevolence. Honor, courage, 
virtue, conscience, all die. Affection dies: love, friendship, 
joy, peace, all die. Ignorance, like that of the brute, 
prevails. All notion of the magnificence of the universe is 
lost. Hven the magnitude of the earth is not suspected. 
Men deem it a small plain; the sky above it a solid dome; 
and sun, moon, and stars a set of interchanging lamps. But 
not only is.all proper notion of the works of God lost: God 
himself is not in all their thoughts. They have a dreamy 
remembrance of something divine; but know not whether it 
is one or many, little or great, or where or how it is to be 
found. They seek it in the objects around them, even 
inferior to themselves. They think they see it in the eye of 
a beast, in the coil of a reptile, in the wing of a bird, in 
the color of a plant—and so worship these. Meantime, the 
passions of the brute awake to confirm and aggravate this 
ignorance. Gluttony, lust, jealousy, murder; and, with 
these, vices of which brutes know nothing—drunkenness, 
cursing, lying, covetousness, fraud, slavery, war, and a 
thousand others. In the midst of all, a little spiritual life 
is preserved—like an evergreen, with a waste of wintry snow 
around it. I see a venerable patriarch, here and there, who 
builds an altar to the true God, and lays his offering on it. 
An angel descends, stands by the altar, blesses the worship- 
per, touches the offering with heavenly fire, and ascends with 
the flame. The patriarch learns much of God—his_ will, 
ways, works, and designs; but still all is confined within the 
apparent littleness of the circle of the senses. ‘To him, the 
sky is simply God’s palace; there is his throne; thence he 
looks to the ends of the earth, or, from horizon to horizon ; 
the lightning is thé glance of his eye, the thunder is the 


814 THOMAS H. STOCKTON. 


utterance of his voice, the cloud is his chariot, and the 
winds are his steeds. So'near is he, at all times, that he 
not only sees every sacrifice that is made to him, but smells 
the savor of it, as it rises from the altar. Therefore, too, 
he so easily hears and answers prayer. 

Time passes. All the life left on earth is enclosed in an 
ark. There it burns, brightly but gently, with a world of 
wild waters around it, striving to quench it. But God dries 
the top of a mountain, sanctifies it as an altar, puts the 
living fire on it, hangs the rainbow over it, and smiles to see 
how the waters rush away from its kindling and spreading 
glory, and gather their waves for ever within impassable | 
bounds. 

‘ Other ages pass. Men multiply again. Sins multiply 
again. Sorrows multiply again. Intellect, sentiment, af- 
fection, die again. Yet, here and there, in the withered 
Wildérness, a true altar is raised, and the fire from heaven 
again descends upon it. Ere long, a nation of slaves, whose 
chains melted from their forms at the flash of an angel’s eye, 
and who marched over a path of pearl through the valley of 
the sea, between mountains shining all through like crystal, 
pitch their camp in the shadow of a desert cliff, and see that 
same pavilion which was folded round the throne of the uni- 
verse, in the hour of heaven’s strange twilight and hushed. 
hallelujahs, borne by the morning stars and sons of God, and 
rested, with its fullness of inner glory, amidst the trumpet- 
ings and shoutings of the whole host, on the trembling 
summit. They see their leader enter the pavilion with the 
pale face of a man, and come out again with a countenance 
glowing like a God. He bears in his hand a law written by 
the fingers of Him who dwells within those sacred folds. 
They make a tabernacle, according to the pattern shown in 
the mount, and the priests bear it from station to station, 
for forty years, under the angel’s watching, till Jordan 
pauses to let it pass; und Zion rises up to receive it, and 
Lebanon bows in homage from afar; and the great sea, 


A CHRISTMAS SERMON. 815 


turning its billows and foam into gold, in the smile of the 
setting sun, rolls its tribute along the coast from Syria to 
Egypt, and kneels and kisses the soil which is hallowed from 
shore to shore by the presence of the Shekinah and the 
tribes of the chosen. 

Other ages pass. The temple shines on Moriah. The 
sky above it gleams with prophetic visions. The land 
around it blooms with symbolic blessings and smokes with 
symbolic curses. The rocks, groves, and streams; the 
palaces, cottages and tents, are all alive with the bugles of 
faith, the harps of hope, the lutes of love, and the timbrels 
of salvation. The thrill is felt in other lands. A gush of 
expectation is felt at the heart, and pulsates to the extremi- 
ties of the world. 

Four thousand years have rolled away. Many genera- 
tions of millions on millions have led an animal life, and 
fallen, with the beasts, into the grave. Some spiritual life 
has kept the world from growing quite cold; and, beside 
this, there is hope of redemption. The promise given in 
Eden is on record yet. But why is it not fulfilled ? 

Again, I leave this little, lower world. I pass Venus, 
pass Mercury, pass the Sun, pass the orbit of Mercury 
again, and of Venus, and of the Earth, and of Mars, and of 
the Asteroids, and of Jupiter, and Saturn, and Uranus; pass 
other systems, thousands on thousands, still tending to the 
centre and balance of the universe. I reach Heaven. I see 
the angel of the Lord again, with a farewell suffusion in his 
eyes, but a smile of joy on his lips. Though in the form 
of God, and thinking it not robbery to be equal with God, 
and with the whole host of glory in adoring homage before 
him, there is something nearer and dearer to his heart than 
all the grandeur of his filial estate. His promise is* the 
brightest jewel in his breast-plate; and is only excelled by 
the love which burns behind it. He sees from the throne 
what no other vision can discern, the humble dwelling-place 
of man. And the appointed time is near for advent and 


816 THOMAS H. STOCKTON. 


sacrifice. Solemnity, such as was never felt before, oppresses 
heaven. In the universal stillness, if a single harp-string 
should snap, the sound would jar the throne. He alone 
may break such silence. I hear his voice divine. All 
orders are permitted to attend him. When they approach 
the earth, order after order is to descend and ascend, offering 
him worship—but quietly and unseen. One company only, the 
sons of God, with Michael, the archangel of power, at their 
head, may announce his coming to a few shepherds. 
Another, the morning stars, with Gabriel, the archangel of 
wisdom, at their head, may lead a few sages to his presenny 
by the light of a single star. 

I wait not to witness the solitude of nee but rather 
leave the procession to complete its arrangements, and hasten 
again to the earth. 4 

The world is at peace. The decree of a Roman prince is 
abroad in Judea. ‘The people are gathering together in the 
cities to which they belong. I repair to Bethlehem.: 
Though the least of the cities of Judah, it is honored as the 
birth-place of David, and cherished as the chosen of David’s 
greater son. Already it is crowded. very street, and 
court, and roof, and the  hill-side around is thronged. I 
look upon its multitude, and think—Oh how will they feel 
when the coming Messiah, advancing beyond his invisible 
host, shall shine on their towers, and alight in their midst ! 
The sun sets. The cool of the evening. causes the throng 
to retire to their shelter. The twilight lingers about. the 
gates. 

I pass through. I seek a rest at the inn. It is full. 
I hear of two strangers who have spent several days in the 
stable. If good enough for them, it is good enough for 
me. I enter the same retreat. I find it full of parental 
solicitude. The noble countenance of the man is softened 
with a heart full of tenderness. The pale face of the 
young mother is inexpressibly serene, with a holy and 
wonderful beauty. Her bed is but straw ; and in a manger, 


A CHRISTMAS SERUON. 817 


laid close beside her, sleeps her babe, but a few hours old. 
Young as it is, that babe has a heavenly smile; but the mother 
is still the most attractive. There is a dignity in her mien 
that awes me, and a spirit which it seems as if nothing could 
surprise or overcome. Yet, as she bends her calm eyes on 
her smiling son, she wears a look of devotion and praise. 

I soon learn their story. They have come from Nazareth, 
from the hills of Galilee, overlooking the plain of Esdrelon ; 
by Tabor and Gilboa, and the mountains of Samaria; be- 
tween Ebal and Gerizim; by Jacob’s well; and by Jerusalem 
—a long and weary way. And now, though both of the 
lineage of David, and in the city of their renowned ancestor, 
and under circumstances of so much interest, they are happy 
to find a refuge from the careless crowd around them among 
the beasts of the stall. 

But who are these? Shepherds! whence do ye come? 
They answer not; but kneel by the manger, and worship 
the babe! They rise with his heavenly smile reflected in 
their own. They tell of a visit of angels; first one, then 
many, with visions of glory and chantings of praise and 
peace. I tremble with fear. Where, then, is the angel of 
the Lord? While yet the night lingers, other footsteps draw 
near. Sages! who and whence are ye? ‘They answer not. 
Like Moses, they take off their sandals, breathing only— 
This is holy ground! They, too, kneel by the manger, and 
worship the babe. With tears in their eyes, they spread 
their gifts before him—gold, and frankincense, and myrrh. 
They, also, rise, with their tears turned into smiles. They 
tell how a star brought them from their far-off homes.’ I 
tremble more and more. What means this worship of the 
stranger's babe, and where yet is the angel of the Lord? I 
step forth from the stable. I listen. Allis still. The inn 
is hushed. The halls around are all hushed. I look up. I 
_see the new star sparkling in the middle air, right over the 
stable. My natural vision seems clear as ever; but my 

3F 


818 THOMAS H. STOCKTON. 


spiritual vision has been dim ever since I saw the suffused 
countenance of the angel of the Lord, preparing to leave the 
throne of the universe. . To think that he should make such 
a sacrifice as to stoop to the earth for a kingdom, and resign 
the government of angels for the redemption of men, was 
more than my spirit could bear. But still less can I bear 
the burden of this mystery. Has he come? Where, then, 
does he hide the greatness of his power? God of the servant 
of thy servant Elisha, open thou mine eyes! 

My vision returns. That light! See! Why it shines on 
the forehead of Gabriel, standing on his watch as he stood 
erewhile at the throne! Lo! The morning stars are arrayed 

beside him, and extend their train far behind him. Lo! 
- Michael stands opposite, with all the sons of God in their 
purple robes and royal breast-plates. Behold! how, be- 
tween their ranks, order after order of the whole heavenly 
host descend and ascend, to worship the babe. I tremble 
still; but doubt no more. I sink by the manger, and thrill 
while I see that the same suffused light, and the same glad 
smile that were blended in the countenance of the angel of 
the Lord, gleams in the eye and glows on the lips of the 
infant Jesus ! 


‘‘ Sweetest name on mortal’s tongue, 
Sweetest note in angel’s song, 
Sweetest carol ever sung, 

Jesus! Jesus!” 


Yet, was it not sacrifice enough to exchange the throne of 
heaven for the throne of earth? Why this deeper humilia- 
tion? How shall he rise now? Earthly sovereignty is 
divided. A thousand petty princes sway their sceptres here. 
How shall he reach even the palace of Zion? And if this be 
hard, how shall he displace Czesar, and win the supremacy 
of the world? 

I see him as a boy; wise indeed, and pure, but self-abased 
and gentle. 


A CHRISTMAS SERMON. 819 


I see him as a man; wonderful in word and mighty in 
miracle, but still meek and lowly in heart, the companion of 
fishermen and publicans, outcast and poor; a citizen, but 
without a penny for tribute; weary, but without a spot to 
lay his head; hungry, and without a morsel of food. I see 
him opposed by demons; assailed by jealous and blood- 
thirsty men; betrayed by one of his cherished friends; 
conducted, with every method of insult, through a mock 
trial; condemned, without the shadow of guilt, to the vilest 
and most painful of all modes of execution; and led forth, 
without a murmur of complaint or an effort of resistance, 
bearing his cross, through a jeering mob, to the place of 
skulls. 

Again, I am confounded. What means this strange sub- 
mission? Will there be a change presently, like that be- 
tween the throne whence he came, and the manger where he 
lay? Will Calvary, as soon as his feet touch it, tower above 
Zion and Moriah? Will the cross be turned into a shining 
seat of imperial power? Will the patriarchs and prophets 
be summoned’ from their graves, that he may reign in the 
midst of his ancients gloriously? Will his enemies wither 
in his glance, and shrivel in the wrath of his frown? Will 
all cities throw open their gates, and all princes come down 
from their thrones, and all nations send ambassadors in haste 
to conciliate his majesty with homage and praise? 

I see him step on Calvary, and not an atom trembles. I 
see him nailed to the wood. I see his upward look of pity- 
ing love, and hear his prayer—‘“ Father, forgive them, they 
know not what they do!”’ I see him hanging, faint, in the 
noon-day darkness. . I hear his last cry—‘‘ It is finished! ”’ 
—and see his head fall upon his bosom in death ! 

Sudden as the shock of the earthquake, my soul thrills 
with the truth. Quick as the rending of the vail of the 
_ temple, the veil upon my mind is parted, and the glory of 
God shines in upon it. 

Isee that there was one sacrifice too great for Christ to 


820 THOMAS H. STOCKTON. 


make! He was willing to leave the throne of the universe 
for the manger of Bethlehem; willing to grow up as the son 
of a poor carpenter; willing to be called the friend of 
publicans and sinners; willing to be watched with jealous 
eyes, and slandered by lying tongues, and hated by murder- 
ous hearts, and betrayed by friendly hands, and denied by 
pledged lips, and rejected by apostate priests, and a deluded 
populace, and cowardly princes; willing to be sentenced to 
the cross, and to carry the cross, and be nailed to the cross, 
and bleed, and groan, and thirst, and die on the cross. But 


he was not willing to wear an earthly crown, or robe, or ~~ 


wield an earthly sceptre, or exercise earthly rule. That 
would have been too great a sacrifice! He did, indeed, 
endure the crown of thorns, and the cast-off purple, and the 
reed, and the cry—“ Hail! king of the Jews!” But this 
was merely because he preferred the mockery to the reality ; 
sO pouring infinite contempt on the one, not only by reject- 
ing it in the beginning of his ministry, but, oles by accept- 
ing the other at its close. 

A godlike sacrifice! I see it. I see it. The blood of 
Christ was an atonement for the sins of the world! ‘ He 
was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our 
iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and 
by his stripes we are healed !”’ 

I see it. His burial hallowed the tomb; the breaking of 
the seal on his sepulchre, was the breaking of the seal on 
every sepulchre; the ascension of his humanity to heaven is 
the warrant of our own ascension; and its entire and eternal 
perfection, exalted as it is, ‘far above all principality, and 
power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is 
named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to 
come,’ is the assurance of our own perfection, in all the 
honors of joint-heirship with him, in the many-mansioned 
house of his Father, where he has gone “to prepare a place” 
for us. 


A CHRISTMAS SERMON. 821 


I look on heaven again. Instead of the angel of the Lord, 
I see by the throne of the universe, Jesus, the babe of Beth- 
lehem, the boy of Nazareth, the man of Calvary ! 


“While, long returned, the angels round him sing, 
And saints, yet coming, shout to see their king!” . 


The saints! Who are they? ‘The spirits of the just 
made perfect ’—redeemed from the earth! They who have 
“come up through much tribulation, and washed their robes 
and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” They 
who, in imitation of their Lord and Master, quickened into 
spiritual life, have cherished and manifested a readiness to 

sacrifice fame, rank, office, power, wealth, pleasure, ease, 
— time, health, life—everything but righteousness—for the one 
great cause of man’s redemption ! 

Patriarchs! Prophets! Apostles! Martyrs! Confessors ! 
Reformers! and millions of humble names scarce ever heard 
on earth beyond the hearth-stone of love, the threshold of 
home, and the courts of the house of the Lord, there unite 
with the first-born sons of glory in giving praise ‘to him 
that sitteth upon the throne and to the Lamb for ever!” 

I see an immense multitude preparing around me, for the 
same transit : 


‘“‘They all of sin were dupes and slaves, 
And rushing blind toward hopeless graves. 
Then blew the trumpet of God’s word ! 
Then flashed the Spirit’s two-edged sword! 
They burst their bonds, their freedom won, 
And now toward heaven are marching on!”’ 


We are enrolled with them. We are pledged to the whole 
campaign! What though our foes are many? What though 
they are mighty? “Greater is he that is in us, than he 
that is in the world!’ “Through Christ we can do all 
things.” This is the victory that overcometh the world— 
even our faith! ‘All things are possible to him that be- 


822 THOMAS H. STOCKTON. 


lieveth!’’ We can run through a troop, we can leap over a 
wall. ‘One shall chase a thousand, and two shall put ten 
thousand to flight!’ Let the mightiest array be marshalled 
against us that ever was mustered by the Prince of Dark- 
ness, we fear not to meet them. Our friends are beyond 
them. Our kindred are beyond them. ‘The saints are all 
beyond them. The angels are all beyond them. Christ is 
beyond them. God is beyond them. Heaven and eternal 
life are beyond them. And we will break through them. 
Shoulder to. shoulder, foot to foot, heart with heart, hand 
with hand, with our shields lapped and our swords ready, we 
will press and cut our way to glory! 

The spirit of Abraham is in us. The spirit of Moses is in 
‘us. The spirit of Elijah is in us. The spirit of Paul is in us. 
The spirit of Luther is in us. The spirit of Wesley is in us. 

Like them, we are ready to give up all for Christ. Nay, the 
- spirit of Christ is in us, and like him, we are ready even to 
be crucified for the cause ! 

It is well, brethren and friends, to be confident in the 
Lord—to be able to say, ‘I am persuaded, that neither 
death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, 
nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, 
nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the 
love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 

But, it is still better to be actually “ faithful unto death,” 
and then to be able to say—‘“ I am now ready to be offered, 
and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a 
good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: 
henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, 
which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that 
day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love 
his appearing.”’ 

““GLoryY To Gop!” 


INDEX. 


Access To Gop, Foster, 227 : 
An eminent privilege, 227 ; gradation of thought to the Almighty, 
228; to a permanent assembly of the best of humanity, 228; to the il- 
lustrious of departed saints, 229; to the loftier angelic intelligencies, 
229; to the awful communion of mortal with the Uncreated and In- 
finite, 230; man’s unworthiness thereof, 231 ; Omnipotent Holiness 
‘¢ a consuming fire ’’ to sinfulness, 232; coming to God demands faith 
in Him, 233; living faith begets consequences, 234 ; conviction to be 
absolute of this communion’s importance, 235; God’s manifestation 
of his goodness the best, 236 ; faith required that ‘‘ He is the rewarder,’’ 
237 ; necessity and merits of the Mediator, 238; God to be sought 
diligently and in faith, 240. 
Accusers of the wicked at judgment, 695-701. 
‘* Acts of the Deacons,’’ Goulburn, 540. 
Adam, wrongfully condemned for man’s fall, 82. 
A day in the Life of Jesus of Nazareth, 180. 
Afflictions in God’s language blessings, 87. 
Alexander, Archibald, ‘* Keeping Alive the Love of God,’ 2 917, 
the.Great, his invasion of Scythia, 408. 
ALIVE IN Gop, Arnold, 32: 
God the God of the living, 32 ; animals know Him not and perish, 
33; death and absence from God synonymous, 33 ; life and belonging 
to God identical, 35; impenitent bear the symptoms of death, 35 ; 
righteous are alive in God, 363 life and death set before mortals, 36 ; 
wicked foretaste the coldness, loneliness, and forgetfulness of death, 
37; ‘‘the living’’ rejoice in God ; this mystery fathomed by the de- 
ceased, 38. 
American Christians, home interests of, 680. 
Ames, Edward R., ‘‘ The Gain of Godliness,’’ 664. 
Angels, the fall of, 421. 
unfallen, confirmed in holiness by Christ’s atonement, 428. 
Anger and revenge, the great tem ptation, 119. 
Arnold, Thomas, ‘ Alive in God,’’ 32. 
biography of, by Dean Stanley, 349. 
Ascension of our Lord, 636. 
‘¢ Astronomical Discourses,” Chalmers, 481. 
Atonement, Christ’s representative, for mankind, 602. 
day of, and its ceremonies, 598. 
establishes God’s impartiality to man and angels, 428. 
of the cross, 19. 
of Christ the only redemption, 420-4. 
justification and sanctification, the undivided, 262. 
universality of the, 607. 
Augustine, ‘‘On the Lord’s Prayer,’’ 110. 
on abiding by the cross, 30. 
(823) 


§24 INDEX. 


Baptism, a profession of faith, 327. 
attaches to the visible church, 552. 
differences of administration allowable, 529. 
definition by Westminster Catechism, 552. 
not the door of heaven, 551. 
one of the two sacraments of the Gospel, 527. 
Barnes, Albert, ‘‘ Blessings of a Benignant Spirit,’’ 40. 
Beecher, Henry, Ward, ‘‘ The Problem of Joy and Suffering in Life,?’ 757. 
BrEvIEVER’s Portion 1n Curist, Tur, McIlvaine, 94: 

Christian’s duty to give thanks, as to pray, 94; I. Manner of the 
future blessedness of believers—an ‘‘ inheritance,’’ 95; joint heirship 
with Christ, 96; ‘‘inheritance of the saints,’’ 97; inclusive of all 
saints, 98; ‘‘ inheritance of the saints in light,’’? 99; heavenly com- 
munion with God and the Lamb, 100; II. Each to be now ‘‘ made 
meet’’ for that blessedness, 101 ; the worldly dead to heavenly joys, 
102; salvation twofold, justification and sanctification, 103; **made 
meet ’’ means likeness to Christ, 103; the ripening of a child’s facul- 
ties, 104 ; its contrast to spiritual deadness, 106 ; maturity of wicked- 
ness in hell, 107; Christians the workmanship of God, 107; grace 
for the halting, 108; blessed assurance for believers, 109. 

Bible, the, practical, 259. 
its doctrines equally valuable, 263. 
Biographical Notices : . 

Alexander, Archibald, 217; Ames, Edward R., 664; Arnold, 
Thomas, 32; Augustine, 110; Barnes, Albert, 40; Beecher, Henry 
Ward, 757; Bunyan, John, 56; Calvin, John, 328; Chalmers, 
Thomas, 481; Channing, W. E., 136; Chapin, Edwin H., 732; 
Chrysostom, 280; D’Aubigné, J. H. Merle, 13; Dwight, Timothy, 
355 ; Edwards, Jonathan, 266; Foster, John, 227 ; Fowler, Charles H., 
782; Goulburn, Edward M., 540; Guthrie, Thomas, 551 ; Hall, New- 
man, 6093; Hall, Robert, 297; Hanna, William, 703 ; Hodge, Charles, 
122; Hill, Rowland, 254; Irving Edward, 455; Kingsley, Charles, 
518; Knox, John, 377; Krummacher, F. W., 598; Latimer, Hugh, 
472; Luther, Martin, 429; McClintock, John, 528; MclIlvaine, 
Charles P., 94; Mason, John M., 643; Melville, Henry, 156 ; Newman, 
John Henry, 444; Philip, Robert, 417 ; Potter, Alonzo, 748; Pres- 
sensé, Edmond de, 501; Punshon, William M., 714; Robertson, F. 
W., 241; Saurin, Jacques, 397 ; Simpson, Matthew, 625; Spurgeon, 
Charles H., 309 ; Stanley, Arthur P., 349; Stockton, Thomas H., 809 ; 
Taylor, Jeremy, 682; Tholnck, F. A. G., 568; Thomson, Edward, 
582; Walden, Treadwell, 797; Wayland, Francis, 180; Wesley, 
John, 81; Whitefield, George, 197. 

Birth, spiritual, differs in degree, 220. 
a symbol of conversion, 560. 
BLeEssincs oF A BENIGNANT Spirit, Barnes, 40. 

I. In what kindness consists, 40; a disposition to be pleased, 41; 
to attribute good motives to others, 42; a bearing with their infirmi- 
ties and faults, 43; charity towards the transgressor, 45 ; because a 
brother still, 46; because of imperfect means of judgment, 47 ; be- 
cause of his right to explain, confess, and be forgiven, 47 ; a disposi- 
tion to aid others when possible, 47; to decline gently and sympatheti- 
cally, when obligatory, 48 ; and to bear refusals with charity, 50; II. 
Value of kindness, 51 ; comfort of life depends on little things, 51; 
usefulness also, 51; world judges religion by the temper manifested, 


INDEX. 825 


52; all usefulness impaired by crabbedness, 53; meekness and kind- 
ness of Christ our example, 54. 

Blood of the Lamb man’s sole safeguard, 424. 

Boasting, its prevalence, and proper object, 13. 

Book of Nature, 749; of Providence, 750; of Revelation, 752; their 
analogies, 753. 

Books, the immortal resultant of men’s lives, 763. 

** Book Above All, The,’’ Stockton, 000. 

‘« British Reformers,’’ John Knox, 377. 

Bunyan, John, ‘‘ The Heavenly Footman,’’ 56. 

Bushnell, Horace, statement of, 792. 


Calvin, John, ‘“‘ On enduring Persecution for Christ,’? 328. 
CaTHOLICITY OF THE GOSPEL, Hodge, 122: 

God the Father of all men, 122; the Christian dispensation spirit- 
ual, 123; I. Jewish economy merely temporal, 124; God the God of 
Gentiles and Jews, 125; II. Christ’s kingdom spiritual and not cere- 
monial, 126; Jewish temple-worship abolished, 127; Jesus the great 
High Priest, 128; Gospel blessings adapted to all mankind, 128; III, 
Righteousness of Christ affords salvatiowfor all, 129; not limited to 
one nation, or in value, 130; and suited to all men, 131; IV. Condi- 
tions of salvation suited to all, 132; V. Adapted to every age and 
country, 132; a proof of its divine origin, 133: catholicity of the 
Scriptures, 134 ; the Gospel suited to us, 135; to be maintained and 
preached everywhere, 135. 

Chalmers, Thomas, ‘‘ Fury not in God,’’ 481. 

Channing, William Ellery, ‘‘ Character of Christ,’ 136. 
Chapin, E. H., ‘‘Nicodemus: The Seeker After Religion,’’ 732. 
CHARACTER OF CuristT, Channing, 136: 

A strong confirmation of His religion, 136 ; Gospel narratives. true, 
artless, and uncolored, 137 ; excellencies obscured by familiarity, 137 ; 
the Jewish character, 138; their expected Messiah, 139; Jesus of 
Nazareth proclaimed a heavenly kingdom, 140; His reception of the 
Gentiles, 141 ; His extraordinary character, 142; no motive for fabri- 
cation, too sublime for imposture, 142; His teaching grand, natural, 
comprehensive, and authoritative, 143; a Messiah stripped of glory 
was not an enthusiast’s conception, 144; His calmness and self-pos- 
session forbid self-deluding enthusiasm, 145; His piety serene, 
loving, constant, and self-denying, 146; His sublime purpose to bless 
the world, 147; ‘‘the Son of God,’’ 148; His natural, lowly life, 
148 ; humanity conscious of unrivalled and divine glories, 150; entire 
sympathy with human nature, 151 ; love of children, care for sinners, 
compassion for the suffering, 152 ; His character manifested the be- 
loved Son of God, 153; His conviction of the greatness of the human 
soul, 154; Jesus, the Saviour of the world, 155. 

Children, animality of, at birth, 763. 
Curistmas Sermon, A, Stockton, 809. 

Communion with God’s Spirit, 809 ; creation of the universe, 810 ; 
apostasy of an insignificant world from holiness, 810; infinite santtity 
of the divine law, 811 ; man to be redeemed by the self-sacrifice of the 
angel of the Lord, 812; lusts and sins of humanity, despite judgments 
and mercies, 813; birth-time of Messiah at Bethlehem, 816 ; worship 
of the babe in the manger, 817; adoration of Jesus by the heavenly 
host, 818; His life of self-denial, and death on Calvary, 819; godlike 


826 INDE X. 


sacritice of Christ as the world’s atonement, 820; saints glorified by 
the blood of the Lamb, 821; Christian victory through faith in the 
Lord Jesus Christ, 822. 

Curist’s ADVENT TO JUDGMENT, Jeremy Taylor, 682: 

Our Saviour the Judge of our crimes, 682; He has to punish the 
sinner’s scorn of Jesus’ miraculous mercies, 683; his re-crucifying of 
the Lord of Life and putting Him to shame, 684; his wicked disgrace 
of the religion and followers of Jesus, 685; the Almighty Judge in- 
flexible and righteous, 686; severity of our Lord shown: (1, by judg- 
ments in these days of mercy and repentance, 687 ; 2, a foreshadowing 
of future condemnation without mercy and pity, 688; 3, an unquiet 
conscience and confusion of guiltiness small punishments now, 689; 
4, even the righteous to undergo a severe trial, 691; 5, Christ to 
judge even hidden deeds and evil thoughts, 692; 6, the wicked to have 
three accusers, 694: 1, Christ their Judge, for rejecting God’s salva- 
tion, 695 ; providences, blessings, and freeness of reconciliation, 696 ; 
2, the conscience, by recalling and rebuking every past transgression, 
and by condemning self for such self-destruction, 698; 3, the devils, 
with malicious and evil purposes, 699; Holy Spirit the defender of 
saints, 700; accusation of the wicked by Diabolus, 701; timely accu- 
sation and reconciliation of self to Christ give eternal peace, 702. 

Christendom, its negligence and ignorance, 504, 

Christian dispensation, spiritual, 123. 

‘¢ Christian Life,’’ Arnold, 32. 

i A struggle for self-conquest, 415. 

Christian Love, On, Latimer, 472. 

Christianity, a law of love, 675; a rule of everyday life, 515; demands no 
real sacrifices, 671; its moral triumphs, 597 and 670; none without 
the cross, 26; progress gradual and constant, 722; the hereafter 
to, 680. , 

Christians, alone neglecters of their sacred books, 302; blessed as- 
surance for, 109 ; conquerors of self by God’s grace, 120; crucified 
with the Lord, 608; directions to, 62, 78, 221-4; duties of avoiding 
self-praise and self-depreciation, 347 ; of contemplation, prayer, praise, 
thanksgiving, 445 ; of courage, 251; of generosity, 310; of thankful- 
ness, 94 ; exhortation to walk close with Christ, 210; exhortation to 
watchfulness, 209 ; life a strife, 581; love a visible badge of, 477 ; 
motives of, 224, 407; oneness with Christ, 468 ; privileges of, 444 ; 
promise of exaltation through Christ, 638-41; rulers of self in right- 
eousness, 399, 411; salutation to, 208; soldiers in God’s warfare, 
526 ; strangers to the world, 306, 451 ; witnesses for God, 330 ; work- 
manship of God, 107. 

CurisTIAN Heroism, Saurin, 397: Ba 

Hyperbole of Scripture, 397 ; yet to rule the spirit logically greater 
than to take a city, 398; a Christian hero, one transformed by grace, 
399 ; to rule the spirit is to govern self righteously, 399; I. Man a 
slave by nature, 400 ; question of free will, 400 ; hostility of the body 
to virtue, 401 ; disorder of the soul, 402 ; each vice and passion imply 
a falsehood to secure self-indulgence, 403; 2, man beguiled by sur- 
rounding objects, 403; by the phenomena of society and life, 404; 
decoyed into vice by example, 4053 self-conquest for virtue’s sake, 
405; 3, man must destroy the superhuman tyranny of habits, 406 ; 
II. Motives of Christian hero greater than a conqueror’s, 407 ; illus- 
tration from invasion of Scythia by Alexander the Great, 408; 2, 


INDEX, 827 


Magnanimous exploits greater, 410; 3, self-conquests greater, 411; 
self-denial the hardest victory, 412; 4, an immortal crown rewards 
the Christian, 413; the Christian life a struggle for self-conquest, 
415; grace aids nature, 416. 
Curistian Victory, Newman Hall, 609: 
Christian life a warfare, and Christ the Captain, 609; I. His promise 
of the hidden manna, 610; Christ the bread from heaven, 610; 
divinely given for our salvation, 611 ; the Christian’s life to be ‘ hid 
with Christ in God,’’ 611; now in part, hereafter in full, 612; 2, 
Promise of the White Stone, or tessera, a tally of hospitality, 613; 
Jesus, the sinner’s guest, 614; Christ gives ‘‘the new name,’ Love, 
615; this tessera honored by the Father, 616; II. Condition of the 
promise, ‘‘ To him that overcometh,’’ 617 ; world of frivolity our foe, 
617; also the flesh, inbred depravity, spiritual pride, and the devil, 
618; no exemptions from Christian warfare, 619; till death, with the 
whole armor of God, 620; the fight arduous, 621 ; Christian incentives, 
622 ; contraries of peace in saint and sinner, 623; mightiness of Christ 
our Redeemer, 624. 
Chrysostom, ‘‘ Foolishness of the Cross Conquering,’’ 280. 
Church, the, afflicted but upheld, 340-1. 

bride of Christ, 469. 

conflict with Satan, 164-79. 

gives close fellowship with God, 718. 

legacy of Jesus’ blood, 606. 

manifestation of Christ and wonderful perservation, 593, 

reciprocal teaching of Christians and, 501. 
Citizenship, heavenly, its privileges illustrated, 795. 
Clarkson, opponent of slave trade, 195. 
ComMMUNION WITH Gop, Newman, 444: 

The great privilege of Christians, 444; duties of prayer, praise, 
thanksgiving, contemplation, 445; prayer reverent conversing with 
God, 445; divine citizenship forfeited by its neglect, 446; habit of 
prayer refines the spirit, 447 ; cures faults of mind, 448; gives grasp 
of doctrinal truth, 448; also, constancy, watchfulness, clear percep- 
tions of truth and duty, 449; stability, the promise of the New Cove- 
nant, 450; Christians not of the world, 451; therefore foreigners in 
habits, motives, and conduct, 452; Saviour’s fellowship preferable to 
world’s friendship, 453; His followers to be blessed, 454. 

ConDESCENSION OF CurisT, Spurgeon, 309: 

Christians to be generous because of Christ’s unbounded liberality, 
310; I. Pristine condition of Saviour, rich in divinity, 310; in pos- 
sessions, power of creation, 311 ; in honor as God, 312; in love, 313 ; 
His infinity, 314; His amazing condescension to poverty, 314; 
human infancy of the Infinite, 315; Christ the prince of poverty, 
3163 destitution greater because of former omnipotence, 318; III. 
To redeem mankind, the Saviour became poor and died, 319; to 
make believers rich through His poverty, 320; Christians rich in pos- 
sessions, 321; ‘*a hand-basket portion,’? 322; rich in promises, 
$22; rich in reversion, 323; inheritance of saints, 323; IV. Doc- 
trine of Christ’s sufficiency and constancy, 324; question of becom- 

ling rich by His poverty, 325 ; exhortation to look to Christ’s poverty 
for salvation, 326 ; baptism a profession of faith, 327. 

_ Conscience and heart, field of religious truth, 512; future accusation of 
the wicked, 698 ; present inquietness a type of judgment, 689. 


828 INDEX. 


Consuming fire, Omnipotent Holiness to sinfulness, 232. 

Contentment, duty of, 371. ; 

Conversion, conviction of Christian truth, and practice in life, 513; great 
change of, 557 ; its importance, 566 ; new birth, 560; resurrection, 561. 

Copartnership, Divine and Human, Fowler, 782-96. 

Covenant of mercy substituted for justice by Adam’s fall, 91. 

Crabbedness destroys all usefulness, 53. 

Creed of Philip the evangelist, 665. 

Cross, the, aversion of flesh to, 337; Christians’ crowning glory, 534; 
disciples each to bear, 353; doctrines, 289 ; six—justification, mor- 
tification, persecution, self-denial, patience, communion with poor 
saints, 70; Foolishness of, Conquering, 280-96; only preventive of 
sin in the universe, 423. 

Cross oF Jesus Curist, D’Aubigné, 13 ; 

I. Opinion of the Apostle, the only ground of boasting, 14; reyeals 
God’s holiness and love, 16; His glory, and man’s wretchedness, 17 ; 
raises man to true greatness by its atonement, 19} the author of eter- 
nal salvation, 203 crucifies man and the world, 21; its power and 
future triumphs, 22; II. Opinion of the World, 23; accounted insig- 
nificant, yet is wonderful, 24; truth attested by everything, 25 ; ‘* fool- 
ishness of the cross ’’ the sum of the world’s wisdom, 26; no Chris- 
tianity without the cross, 26; neglected because not believed needful, 
27 ; the cross denied when shunned, 27 ; coming in lowliness thereto, 
28 ; abiding by the cross, 29 ; in repentance, sacrifice of self, in trials 
and temptations, 30; in tribulation, 31. 

Crucifixion of the Lord Jesus, 326, 598-608, 625. 
loneliness therein, 249. 
repeated by sinners, 684. 

Customs, ancient, danger and difficulty of disturbing, 291. 


D’ Aubigné, J. H. Merle, ** Cross of Jesus Christ,’’ 13. 

‘‘ David the King of Israel,’? Krummacher, 598. 

Day IN THE LiFe OF JESUS OF NazaretH, A, Wayland, 180; 

Value of newspapers and private chronicles, 181 ; the Gospels a 

vivid exhibit of Jesus’ life, 182; a day of His by the Sea of Galilee, 
182; missionary tour of the disciples, 183; lesson of self-example, 
184; the apostles gather unto Jesus, 184; duty of intimate inter- 
course with the Saviour, 185 ; retirement as necessary as publicity, 
186 ; need of periodical rest, 187 ; the great Physician, 188 ; comfort 
must yield to another’s necessities, 189 ; oral teachings of the Saviour, 
190; miracle of the loaves and fishes, 191; rebuke of wastefulness, 
192; reliance on Providence, 193; how to do God’s works with in- 
adequate means, 193; personal faith better than formal organizations, 
1945 faith the origin of all moral reformations, 195; to live for 
others, the example of Christ, 196. 

Death, a bruising of the Christian’s heel, 176. 
and life set before mortals, 36. 
nearness of, 254. 
necessity of preparing for, 489. 
of Jesus Christ a fact, 628-33. 

*‘ Decision of Character,’’ Foster, 227. 

Deity of Jesus Christ, 644-6; see Son of God. 

Destitution, the fact of, explainable, 787. 


INDEX. 829 


Divine AnD Human CopanrtTNersuiP, Fowler, 782: 


An epitome of the divine economy, 782; the Christian a co-worker 
with God—His building, His husbandry, 783; human and divine ac- 
tion a universal law, 784 ; either element, when left to itself, fails, 
784 ; God works in things by human means, 785 ; fact of destitution 
otherwise inexplicable, 787 ; our blessings come through human instru- 
mentalities, 788 ; the humanity in God’s word, and in the incarnation, 
788; the culture for God’s husbandry, 789 ; obligation to build the 


character into the likeness of God, 789; a religious life many-sided, 
with many factors, 7903; salvation by faith the ground of hope, 790 ; 
power of faith to come through works Divine aid, human activity, 791 ; 
regeneration a spiritual work, 792; privileges of working with God, 
793; Christ’s kingdom hastened or retarded as We are active or negli- 
gent, 793; the commensurate dignity attending this great responsi- 
bility, 794; privileges of heavenly citizenship illustrated, 795; the 


love of the Father for a perishing son, 796. 
Deprayity, alienation trom God, 766. 
Devils, accusers of saints and sinners at the judgment, 699-702. 
$+ Devotional Guides,’’ Philip, 417. 
Directions to Christians, 62-78; 209-10; 221-4, 
for self-examination, 299- 305. 
DivinE anp HuMAN CoPpaRTNERSHIP, Wuwiarss 
Doctrinal truth, grasp of, given by prayer, 448. 


Doctrines of the cross: immortality of the soul, resurrection of the body, 


contempt of things present, desire of things future, 289; 70. 
of Scripture equally valuable, 262. 
Duties, best are sins, 204. 
not to be belittled in detail, 674. 
Duty of, gratitude for God’s providences, 304. 
intimate intercourse with the Saviour, 185. 
man to his Creator, Preserver, and Redeemer, 370-5. 
saints in waiting for the Lord, 642. 
to trust results with God, 343. 
witness of God unto death, 345, 
yielding our convenience to other’s necessities, 189. 
Dwight, Timothy, ‘‘ The Sovereignty of God,’’ 355. 


Edwards, Jonathan, ‘‘ Wrath upon the Wicked to the Uttermost,’? 266, 


‘¢ Elijah the Tishbite,’?’ Krummacher, 598. 
ENDURING PERSECUTION FOR CuristT, On, Calvin, 328: 
Certainty of faith needful for steadfastness, 328 ; fanatics not 


true 


martyrs, 329 ; saints the true witnesses of God, 330; lamentable want 
of zeal in bearing testimony, 331; early martyrs of the Church, 331 ; 


their simple theology, 332; the Confession of Faith an inspiration to 
courage, 332; to glorify God the chief aim of life, 333; Christians to 
be fortified with patience, 333 ; conformed to the Lord Fonis by suffer- 
ing and disgrace, 334; Christians deserve chastisements, 335; yet 
permitted to be advotates for God, 336 ; faith tested by persecution, 
336 ; aversion of the flesh to the cross, 337 ; to be overcome ky God’s 
help, 337 ; the prize an immortal crown, 338; these teachings repug- 
nant, but declared by Christ, 338; His promises and threatenings, 
338 ; frail nature divinely strengthened, 339 ; the Church always af- 
flicted by the wicked, 340; but always upheld, 341; courageous 
examples of the martyrs, 341; clearer light of the moderns, 342; but 


830 INDEX. 


slackness to confess God unto death, 343; duty to trust results with 
God, 343 ; and seek strength of the Spirit, 344; the Lord’s wise wit- 
nessing, 344; all to be ready to witness unto death, 345; life and. 
death wholly in God’s hands, 345 ; persecutors to be fearfully judged, 
346 ; Christians to conquer by the Spirit, 347°; the martyr of Tournay, 
347 ; a glorious immortality the fruit of martyrdom, 348. 

Eternal Life, from fulfilling the law of love, 705. 

ETERNAL REDEMPTION, Philip, 417: 

A becoming spirit in Divine conduct, 417; God’s ways in man’s 
salvation infinitely wise, 418; suffering of a sinless Christ proves the 
atonement, 418; I. Its object to bring many sons to glory, 418; 
mortals must be regenerated and sanctified to be fit for heaven, 419 ; 
II. Christ’s atonement alone ‘* became ’’ God in redeeming man, 
420; mere repentance and reformation no check against future sin, 
420; purity, wisdom, and heavenly life no restraints to the fall of 
angels, 421; evil unrestrained increases, 421; holiness by force an 
absurdity, 422 ; our Mediator’s atonement alone the power of moral 
confirmation, 422; secures the eternal holiness of the truly penitent, 
422; cross of Christ the only preventive of sin in the universe, 423 ; 
blood of the Lamb man’s sole safeguard, 424 ; human perfection fails 

. without the Saviour’s blood, 424 ; III. Christ’s atonement ‘‘ became ”’ 
God by not endangering the safety of angels, 425; as a justification 
for not saving fallen angels, 426 ; and by declaring God’s voluntary 
gift the highest happiness to be conferred, 427; redemption throws 

_ open all that can be known or enjoyed, 427; impartiality of God’s 
love established by Christ’s atonement, 428; its fruits, a universe of 
harmony and happiness, 428. 

Eucharist, a feast of thanksgiving, 527. 

** Evening by Evening,’’? Spurgeon, 309. 

‘¢ Evidences of Christianity,’? Chalmers, 481 ; McIlvaine, 94. 
Evil, the result of ignorantly using human faculties, 771. 

‘* Evils of Popular Ignorance,’’ Foster, 227. 

Experience the source of information, 755. 

Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones, 563. 


Facts, the proper subject of inquiry, 755. 

Faith, Abraham’s, 378; begets consequences, 234; certainty of, tested 
by persecution, 328, 336; engrafts into Christ, 553; a gift of 
the Spirit, 498 ; hereditary, and its inspiration, 736 ; historical, not 
sufficient, 206 ; in God’s manifestation of His goodness as the best 
way, 236; in God, as the origin of all moral reformations, 195 ; justi- 
fication in Jesus Christ by, 207, 438, 474; power of, to come through 
works, 791; the mother of love, 479 ; naturalness and childlikeness of, 
554; required in coming to God, 233; Satan vanquished by, 177 
works and not raptures its fruits, 527. 

Father, love of the, for perishing son, 796. 

Fall of Man, God’s love manifested in the, 81-93. 

Family, church, and state, three divine organizations, 679. 

First TempratTion oF Curist, Knox, 377: 

The tempted are not thereby condemned, 377; 1. Temptation is a 
trial of virtue, 378; faith of Abraham, 378; Satan injured by all 
temptations of the righteous, 379; temptations do not separate from 
God’s mercy, 380; II. Person tempted, the Son of God, 380; time, 
after His acknowledgment by God, 381; false deductions of the 


INDEX. 831 


papists from Christ’s fast, 381 ; it exhibited the dignity and excellence 
of His teaching, 382; and His willingness to provoke Satan’s assaults 
for our sakes, 383 ; His fast an imitation of Moses’ and Elias’, 383; 
Satan’s lordship over the Jews, 384; his attack on the Lord, 385 ; 
Satan’s ragings against Messiah, 386; aguinst those blessed by God’s 
mercy, 387 ; III. Manner and means of His temptation, 388 ; in body 
and spirit, according to Scripture, 388 ; power of Satan limited, 389 ; 
Satan’s purpose to make Christ disbelieve the Father’s voice, 390 ; 
his words a denial of Christ’s sonship, 391 ; troubles used by Satan as 
weapons of temptation, 392; Christ’s sword the Word of the Spirit, 
393 ; necessity excludes not God’s care, 394; God’s Word a strong 
armor against Satan’s darts, 395 ; Christ fights and overcomes for His 
saints, 396. 
FooLisHNEss OF THE Cross ConQuERING, Chrysostom, 280: 

Soul-sickness and spiritual aversion of the perishing, 280; Christ’s 
crucifixion accounted foolishness, 281; to be accepted by faith, 281 ; 
natural things unexplainable by reason, 282; power of the cross above 
reason, 283; world’s wisdom made foolish by God, 284; and shown 
to be unprofitable, 285; salvation by the Gospel’s foolishness, 286 ; 
God’s wonderful victory by contraries, 286 ; His apparent weakness 
beyond man’s power, 288; Christianity a gainer by persecution, 289 ; 
willing endurance of the martyrs, 290; Gospel proved divine by its 
conquests, 291; danger and difficulty of disturbing ancient customs, 
2915 strangeness 6f the apostles’ innovations, 293; how came their 
victory ? and doctrines ? 294 ; Christians the light of the world, 294 ; 
childish character of the Greeks, 294 ; to be won by Christian conduct, 
294 ; exhortation to grow in grace, 296. 

Foster, John, ‘* Access to God,’’ 227. 

Fowler, C. H., ‘‘ Divine and Human Copartnership,’’ 782. 
Free agency of man in all actions, 362. 

‘¢ Freedom of the Will,’’? Edwards, 266, 400. 

Fury Nor 1n Gop, Chalmers, 481: 

Not banished, but disclaimed in the Gospel’s invitation, 482 ; I. 
Fury upon the perverse, as on Jerusalem, 483; their everlasting de- 
struction at the Judgment, 484 ; message of peace and reconciliation, 
485 ; embassy of grace, 486 ; II. God wants not to glorify himself by 
the death of sinners, 487; figures of the vegetable kingdom, 487 ; 
feebleness of His enemies, 488; His magnanimity, 489 ; necessity of 
preparing for death, 489 ; certainty of the Judgment, 490 ; III. Peace 
found in the strength of ‘salvation, 491; God ” slorified by transform- 
ing sinners into saints, 492; magnitude of the work of redemption, 
493; warfare and travail of the Redeemer, 494; character of the 
Deity vindicated before all creatures, 495 ; Christ the wisdom and 
power of God, 496; divine strength in man’s regeneration, 496 ; lay- 
ing hold of God’s strength and promises, 497; faith the gift of the 
Spirit, 498 ; God’s victory not over persons but wills, 499 ; merciful 
and gracious invitation of the Father, 500. 

Future blessedness of believers, 95, 100. 
Gain OF GopLiness, Ames, 664: ; 

‘* Mystery of godliness’’ embraces the great facts of revealed re- 
ligion, 664; faith and creed of Philip, 665; Christ’s confession of 
His sonship, 666; this a synopsis of revealed religion, 666 ; religion 
is good, practical, and useful, 667 ; at first, Christianity a promise of 


832 , INDEX. 


the world’s conversion,.668 ; law of mutual dependence in matter and 
spirit, 669;-‘*thus saith the Lord,’’ the standard of faith, 670 ; 
eighteen centuries have given victories to Christianity, 670; it de- 
mands no real sacrifices, 671 ; its blessings of civilization and sancti- 
ty, 671; catholicity of Christ, and freeness of salvation, 672; Mo- 
hammed made soldiers, Christ saints, 673; power of Sabbath schools, 
673; religious duties not to bé belittled in detail, 674 ; Christianity a 
law of love, not of restraints, 675 ; socially, Christianity makes the 
home, 675 ; the family altar, Sabbath, pure domestic associations, 676 ; 
our nation alone founded on Christian principles, 677 ; religious lib- 
erty the first element of progress, 678; civil liberty gauged by re- 
ligious, 679; three divine organizations—family, church, and State, 
679; the hereafter to Christianity’s work, 680; home interests of 
American Christians, 680; duty to pay our debts to the Lord, 681. 
Gethsemane, Jesus in, 568-81. 
a school of suffering, 580. 
Girt or Gop, Tue, Luther, 429: 
Preciousness of the gift of God’s Son, 430; the Almignty the giver 
out of love, 431; true love enhances its value, 432; the gift eternal 
and unspeakable, 483; its consequences, the possession of all things, 
433 ; shameful indifference of mortals to its acceptance, 434 ; the world 
the devil’s bride, 435; yet. greatly favored by God, 436; Christians 
gladdened by His grace, 436; purpose of the gift, man’s salvation, 
437; faith the means of its reception, 438; rejection of good works, 
439; sinners blessed by the Gospel, 440; unbelief combated by the 
Scriptures, 441 ; none excluded from the gift, 442. 

Gop, character vindicated by redemption, 495; glorified by transforming 
sinners into saints, 492 ; gradation of thought to, 228, holiness and love 
of, revealed by the cross,-16 ; magnanimity of, 489 ; not a national 
God, 1223 providence of, 797-807; sovereignty of, 355-75; to be 
sought diligently and in faith, 240; universal love of, to creatures, 
349 ; Unsearchableness of Thoughts, 748-56. 

Gop’s Love ro FatLten Man, Wesley, 81: 

Creator and Adam wrongfully condemned for the Fall of Man, 82; 
the Fall permitted as a blessing, 84; I. Gives mankind a capacity for 
more holiness and happiness on earth, 83 ; otherwise Christ had not 
died a sin-offering, 84; hence, a blank in faith and love as to Father, 
Redeemer, and Sanctifier, 85 ; and in corresponding love to neighbors, 
86 ; afflictions divinely turned into blessings, 87; the grace of over- 
coming evil with good, 88 ; suffering provokes to good works, 89; II. 
Superior holiness to enjoy superior happiness in heaven, 90; the Fall 
substitutes the covenant of mercy for justice, 91, man forgiven in 
Christ, 92 ; God’s wisdom and knowledge peculiarly manifested there- 
in, 93. 

‘** Gospel in Ezekiel, The,’’ Guthrie, 551. 

Gospels, an agency of the Lord’s, 653; Catholicity of the, 122-35 ; Christ 
of the, 590-2; divineness of the, proved by conquests, 291; either 
spiritual life or spiritual death, 5165 immortality and salvation of the, 
725; life-like biography of Jesus, 182; no fabrication, or imposture, 
142. : 

Good Friday, its lessons, 349. 

Goop SaManriTan, Tue, Hanna, 703: 

Question of the lawyer, 703; test of his sincerity by Jesus, 704 ; 
the remarkable answer, 704; eternal life from fulfilling the law of 


7 


INDEX. 833 


love, 705 ; Jewish bigotry as to true brotherhood, 705; parable of the 
good Samaritan, 706 ; indifference of priest and Levite to a suffering 
stranger, 707 ; because not a brother Jew, 708; a triumph of preju- 
dice over humanity, 709; loving compassion of the Samaritan, 710; 
a triumph of humanity over prejudice, 711; brotherly love the essence 
of Christianity, 712; deeds of charity required, 712; uselessness of 
selfish sentimentality, 713; the Lord’s life a continuous manifestation 
of love 10 all humanity, 713. 
Good works, the fruits of faith, 527; covenant of, an iniquity, 203; no 
value in redemption, 439. 
Goulburn, E. M., ‘* The Government of the Tongue,’’ 540. 
GOVERNMENT OF THE TonGugE, THE, Goulburn, 540: 
An index to man’s moral state, 540; also, a determining instru- 
ment—a bit, and a rudder, 541; I. Grace that governs the tongue will 
do anything, 542; speech a chief agent in life’s business, 543; the 
tongue an outpost, having many avenues of temptation, 543; its sins 
palliated by man and condemned by God, 544 ; its words a spiritual 
index for self-examination, 545 ; its vigilant government a criterion 
of the life, 545; If. Its determining control disciplines the temper, 
546 ; conciliation overcomes provocation, 546; humility of expression 
without feeling, hypocrisy, 547; self-praise and self-depreciation for- 
bidden, 547 ; questionable jests and sarcastic exaggeration to be re- 
strained, 548; impure language and desire to be extirpated, 548 ; re- 
ligion not alien to innocent joy and mirth, 548 ; a moping spirit contrary 
to the Gospel, 549 ; continual watchfulness of words, not continual se- 
riousness, enjoined, 549; life and duty aggregates of small things, 
549 ; restraint of the tongue to be an act of continual worship, 550. 
Grace, embassy of, 486. 

Lord’s Supper a means of, 535. 

of overcoming evil with good, 88. 
Gratitude to the Creator, reasons for, 370. 
Greeks, their childish character, 295. 
Guthrie, Thomas, ‘* Man Converted,’’ 551. 


Habit, its tyranny, and how overcome, 406. 
Hall, Newman, ‘‘ Christian Victory,’’ 609. - 
Hall, Robert, ‘‘ Marks of Love to God,’’ 297. 
‘¢ Hand-basket portion,’’? 322. 
Hanna, William, ‘* The Good Samaritan, 703. 
Happiness, compliance with God’s will, 357 ; eludes riches and honors, 
364; highest of God’s gifts, 427 ; how to be obtained, 56. 
the concomitant of moral perfection, 760. 
‘Heaven, superior holiness to enjoy superior happiness therein, 90. 
Heavenly communion with God and the Lamb, 100. 
HeAvENLY Footman, Tue, Bunyan, 56: 
Heaven desired, and how to be obtained, 56; we are to run for it, 
56; to run so as to obtain, 57; fleeing, pressing, continuing, 58 ; all 
gain not the prize, 58 ; one must win as well as run, 593; the journey 
long and tedious, 60; time short, 60; adversaries: devil, law, sin, 
death, and hell, 60; gates may be shut shortly, 61 ; failure is the loss 
of all, 61; Directions: get in the right way, which is Christ, 62 ; 
avoid relying on outward obedience, or inward righteousness, 63 ; 
- study and muse on the way, 64; strip off encumbrances, covetousness, 
pride, lust, &c., 64; beware of by-paths, 65; besprinkling of Christ’s 


oT 3a 


834 INDEX. 


blood along. the right way, 66; look not too ‘high in journeying 
heavenward, 67 ; heed not beguilements of callers, 97 ; follow not en- 
ticements of sinners, 68; be not daunted by discouragement, 69 ; nor 
offended at the cross, 70: doctrines of justification, mortification, (i Oe 
of perseverance, 72; of patience, self-denial, communion with poor 
saints, 73; pray God to enlighten the understanding, 745 and to in- 
flame the will, 76; indomitableness of the martyrs, 76; shifts of the 
wicked ones, 77; summary of directions, 78; provocation, 79; ex- 
postulation, 80. 

Hell, its maturity of wickedness, 107. 

Hereditariness, force of the law of, 765. 

Hill, Rowland, ‘‘ Improvement of Time,’’ 254. 

History, Christ of, 593-7. 

‘‘ History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century,’? D’Aubigné, 13, 
429. 

Hodge, Charles, ‘* Catholicity of the Gospel,’’ 122. 

Holiness, Omnipotent, a consuming fire to sinfulness, 232. 
man born empty of, 765. 

‘* Holy Living,’’ ‘‘ Holy Dying,’’ Jeremy Taylor, 682. 

Holy Spirit, all powerful testimony of, 508; convinces of unbelief, 207 ; 
defender of saints in the judgment, 700; descent of the, at Pentecost, 
720; imagery of the living waters, 714-31. 

** Holy War, The,’’ Bunyan, 56. 

Home interests of American Christians, 680. 
the fruit of Christianity, 675. 

*¢ Homilies on the New Testament,’’ Augustine, 110; Chrysostom, 208. 

Psalms, Chrysostom, 280. 

Hoshea, Saviour, 456. 

‘* House Postils,’’ Luther, 430. 

Howard the Philanthropist, 95. 

*¢ Hypatia, or, New Foes with Old Faces,” Kingsley, 517. 


**Tdle Word, The,’’ Goulburn, 540. 

Indwelling sin, the Christian’s burden, 203. 

Impenitent bear the symptoms of death, 35. 

Import OF THE Lorp’s SurreER, McClintock, 528 : 

Baptism and Lord’s Supper the two Gospel sacraments, 528 ; former, 

& passive initiation, like circumcision, 529 ; latter, the active rite of 
confirmation, like the passover, 529 ; differences of administration tri- 
fling, 529; I. Lord’s Supper memorial of the past, 530; teaches 
Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, 531 ; spiritual import of the bread, 531 ; 
and of the wine, 532 ; Christ the broken bread and spilt wine, 532; a 
historical testimony of Christ’s death, 533 ; cross of Christ the Chris- 
tian’s crowning glory, 534 ; II. Its relation to the present, as a means 
of grace, 535; sacraments in all dispensations foretold the living 
Saviour, 535 ; Christ spiritually present therein, 536 ; the substantial 
and the intangible, 537 ; Redeemer met and communed with by faith, 
537 ; III. Its pledge of future glory and everlasting life, 538 ; to be 
a memorial only till Christ’s coming, 538; pledge of the marriage 
feast of the Lamb, 539 ; invitation of all to this assurance of redemp- 
tion, 539. 

IMPROVEMENT OF Time, Rowland Hill, 254 : 

Nearness of eternity, 254; bringing God into the understanding, 

255 5 delivery of Israel from bondage, 256; spiritual value of Leviti- 


INDEX. 835 


eal institutions, 257 ; redemption and fulfilment of these types, 257 ; 
alive in Christ, the paschal lamb, 258; mysterious symbols of the 
passover, 259 ; the Bible practical, 259 ; strong promises of Scripture, 
260; leaven of wickedness cast out, 261; undivided atonement of 
Christ, justification and sanctification, 262; all the doctrines equally 
valuable, 263; believer to be crucified with Christ, 264; life to be 
‘hid with Christ in God,’’ 264; blood of the Lamb to be sprinkled by 
faith on the heart, 265. 

Impurity of word and thought to be extirpated, 548. 

Innocent enjoyments consistent with religion, 548. 

** Institutes of the Christian Religion,’’ Calvin, 328. 

Irving, Edward, ‘‘ The Lord Jesus Christ,’ 455. 


Jah, Jehovah, 456-9. 

‘¢ Jesus Christ : His Times, Life, and Work,’’ Pressensé, 501. 

Jesus Curist: Advent to judgment, 682-702; Almighty office: of re- 
demption shown in name, 455-71; believer’s Portion in, 94-109; 
captain of our salvation, 609-24; character of, 36-55 ; communed 
with in Lord’s Supper by faith, 537 ; condescension of, 309-27 ; cruci- 
fixion of, 598-608 ; day in the Life of, 180-96 ; death of, a revelation 
of faith and love, 85; example of meekness and kindness, 54; head 
of the Church, warring with Satan, 166-70; in Gethsemane, 568-81 ; 
justification by, 308; kingdom of, hastened or retarded as we are 
active or negligent, 793; loneliness of, 241-53; Lord’s Supper a 
historical testimony to death of, 533; Messiah’s throne, 643-63; 
motives of, 407; of Nazareth, 349-54 ; paschal lamb, the, 258; resur- 
rection of our Lord, 625-42; spirit of His teaching, 503; Son of 
God, 303 ; transfiguration of, 517-27 ; What think Ye of ? 282-97 ; wis- 
dom and power of God, 496. 

JESUS IN GETHSEMANE, Tholuck, 508: 

Heart of Jesus Christ a revealer of man’s heart, 569; trial of suf- 
fering, 570; to be borne in ‘Solitude, 571; conflict of human No and 
Divine Yes, 571; Saviour’s agony incomparably beyond Socrates’, 572 ; 
the Lamb of God bearing the world’s sin, 573 ; His obedience to Divine 
necessity, 574 ; apprenticeship to affliction, 575; entire submission to 
God’s will, 576; Christ’s human need of sympathy, 5775 His re- 
peated soul-conflicts, 578; forgetfulness of suffering unnatural, 579 ; 
affliction patiently borne, as the Father’s will, 579; Gethsemane a 
school -of affliction, 580; obedience the law of the new life, 580; 
Christian life a strife, 581. 

JESUS OF NAZARETH, Stanley, 349: 

Lessons of Good Friday, I. Universal love of God to all creatures, 
349; Palestine famous by Christ’s death, 350; spirit of Christ’s life 
shown in sermon at Nazareth, 351; to preach the gospel to the poor, 
to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captive, 351 ; 
to give sight to the blind, 352; message of Christianity to prodigal 
and sinner, 352; II. All good deeds in the world require a sacrifice, 
353 5 Jesus and all disciples bear the cross, 3533; faith to be founded 
in Him, as a rock, 354. 

Jewish character, 138 ; economy merely temporal, 124; bigotry of nation, 
as to true brotherhood, 705; Satan’s lordship over, 384. 

Joy and suffering in life, the problem of, 751-81. 

Judgment, Christ’s Advent to, 682-702. 
certainty of, 490; everlasting destruction of wicked at. 484. 


836 INDEX. 


\ 


Justification: by faith through Jesus Christ, essential to conversion, 207, 
308 ; doctrine of, 71; justification and sanctification, 103; the undi- 
vided atonement of Christ, 262. 


Kereprine ALIvE THE Love or Gop, Alexander, 217: 
God’s love to us, our love to God, 217 ; He works in man to good, 

218; love to God comprehends, esteem or complacency, benevolence 
and gratitude, 219; spiritual birth, like natural, differs in degree, 220; 
Directions: shun whatever grieves the Holy Spirit, 221; meditate 
often on God’s works and word, 221; increase spiritual affections and 
habits by exercise, 222; seek increase of faith, 223; pray in the Holy 
Ghost, 224; Motives: to glorify God on earth, 224; to cherish and 
save fellow-creatures, 225 ; to increase in grace, and ripen for future 
glory, 225. 

Kindness, in what it consists, 40-50; its value, 51-3; Christ our example 
of,.54. 

Kingdom of Christ, spiritual and not ceremonial, 126. 

Kingsley, Charles, ‘‘ The Transfiguration,’’ 518. 

Knox, John, ‘*‘ The First Temptation of Christ,’ 377. 

Krummacher, F. W., ‘‘ The Crucifixion,’’ 598-608. 


Latimer, Hugh, ‘‘ On Christian Love,’’ 472. 

Law, the, consummated in love, 478. 

Learning, pure, sanctified by Jesus Christ, 525. 

‘¢ Lectures delivered at Broadmead Chapel, Bristol,’’ Foster, 227. 

Levitical institutions, spiritual value of, 257. 

Liberalists, religion of, 746. 

Liberty, religious, first element of progress, 678. 
civil gauged by religious, 679. 

Life, chief aim of, to glorify God, 333 ; death and, set before mortals, 36 ; 
in God’s hands, 345 ; God’s sovereignty over, 355-7673 to be a life of 
faith, 253; problem of, to unfold God’s germ in humanity, 766 ; to be 
hid with Christ in God, 264. 

‘¢ Life of Christ, The,’? Hanna, 703. 

‘¢ Life of Jesus the Christ,’’ Beecher, 757. 

‘¢ Light from the Cross,’’ Tholuck, 568. 

Little things, comfort and usefulness dependent on, 51. 

. make up life and duty, 549. 

Living Waters, Tun, Punshon, 714: 

Word picture of the rising of the Nile, 7143; moral barrenness of 
the world without the life-giving Gospel, 715; spiritual similitude of 
Ezekiel’s vision, 716 ; channels of religious blessings not to be des- 
pised, 717 ; close fellowship with God found in His church, 718; the 
world not orphaned of a present God, 719; descent of the Spirit at 
Pentecost, 720; faith in the Holy Ghost a comfort and power, 721 ; 
progress of the Gospel gradual and constant, 722; triumph of Chris- 
tianity by the Spirit’s energy, 723; men to be workers with God, to 
share in the joyful harvest, 724 ; the Gospel’s immortality and salva- 
tion, 725; placid expectancy of the Master, 726; responsibilities. of 
this generation, 726 ; each to grow holier and heavenlier day by day, 
727; the Gospel a life for all, and for every faculty, 728; rival waters 
of the Aar and Rhone, 729 ; hope in the Gospel for every penitent sin- 
ner, 730; the communion a feast of the faithful, 731. 

‘* Living Words,’’ McClintock, 527. 


| INDEX. 837 


LONELINESS OF CHRIST, Robertson, 241: 
Solitude of insulation in space, 241; solitude of isolation of the 
spirit, 242; men of self-reliance, 242 ; the affectionate character craves 
sympathy, 243; Christ of the latter class, 243; I. His solitude from 
divineness of character, 244 ; complexity and many-sidedness of His 
life, 245 ; danger of diseased sensibility, 246 ; awakening of the soul 
unto God, 247; Christ’s solitude in agony and trial, 248; loneliness 
in dying, 249; II. His temper in solitude: its grandeur, 249; self-re- 
liance, 250; humility, 251; abiding in the Father, 252; life to be a 
life of faith, 253, 
Lorp Jesus Curist, Tue, Irving, 455: 

Father and Son source of all spiritual benefits, 455; office of Son 
shown by name Jesus, 456 ; Hoshea, ‘‘Saviour,’’ Jah, ‘* Jehovah,” 
456; type and mystery of the name, 457 ; Jah, self-existent, unde- 
rived, unchangeable, self-sufficient, 458 ; ihe Son, Jehovah of the 
covenant, 459 ; the God-man, the revelation of redeeming love, 460; 
Jesus the Almighty Saviour, 461; His travail of salvation, 462 ; fu- 
ture exaltation of the saints, 463 ; inferences of doctrine: 1, mankind 
under condemnation, 464; Jesus the only Saviour from sin, 465 ; 2, 
God’s revelation of himself as a Saviour, 466; sureness of redemp- 
tion, 467; 8, oneness of believer with Christ, 468; the Church His 
bride, 469 ; "rejoicing in Christian fellowship, 470; Jesus the only 
refuge, 471. 

Lorp’s Prayer, On THE, Augustine, 110: 

Competentes taught what to believe, then what to ask, 111; by 
‘* Our Father,’’ our Saviour calls every one into His brotherhood, 
111; ‘‘ Hallowed be Thy Name’? in us, for it is holy, 112; “ Thy 
kingdom come”? unto believers, 112; ** Thy will be done as in heaven, 
so in earth,’’ unto righteousness of life eternally, 113; ‘‘Our daily 
bread, ”’ temporal blessings continually, 1143 and the spiritual tasting 
of Christ, oe “Debts? are sins, forgiven as we forgive, 116; 
temptation a conflict with self, 117; anger and revenge the great 
temptation, 119; self conquered by God’s | grace, 120. 

Lord’s Supper, Import of the, 527-39 ; a feast of the faithful, 731. 
Love, child of faith, 474. 
Christian, 472-80. 
sum of all things, 472. 
fulfillment of its law gives eternal life, 705. 
Love of God, Keeping Alive the, 217-25. 
Luther, Faith of, in God, 195. 
‘* Gift of God, The,’’ 429. 
** House Postils,’? 430. 


McClintock, John, ‘‘ Import of the Lord’s Supper,’’ 528. 
McIlvaine, Charles P., ‘‘ The Believer’s Portion in Christ,’? 94. 
Maw Convertep, Guthrie, 551: 

Baptism not the door of heaven, 551; baptism defined by West- 
minster Catechism, 552 ; attaches to the visible church, 552; believers 
engrafted alive into Christ by faith, 553; naturalness of faith, 553; 
_its strength and childlikeness, 554 ; faith the soul of friendship, 5553 
manifested by farmer and sailor, 555 ; fatherhood of saving faith, 5563 
conversion a great change, 557; best of mankind must be born again, 
558; outward reformation not spiritual life, 559; a new birth itg 
Gospel symbol, 560; conversion a resurrection, 561 ; its wonderful- 


838 INDEX. 


ness. 562; Ezckiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones, 563; grace of 
conversion a quickening of death into life, 564; different experiences 
by saints, 565; necessity of anxiety for the soul, 566; its new birth 
a transforming reality, 567. 

Man, his imbecility, 754. ; 

Manna, hidden, promise of the, 610-12. 

Marks or Love To Gop, Robert Hall, 297. 

Self-righteous Pharisees ignorant of God, 297; danger of such self- 
delusions, 298; certain marks of grace to help in self-examination, 
298; 1, general bent of voluntary thoughts indicate the temper, 299 ; 
2, disposition to the exercises of religion, 300; 3, affection toward 
the Word of God, 301; 4, sentiments to the people of God, 302; 
5, disposition to the person and office of the Son of God, 303; 6, gratitude 
for God’s providénces, 304; 7, contrition because of personal sins, 
305 ; 8, affection to this world, 305; lack of love to God, how im- 
proved, 306; conviction with humiliation, 306; with concern and 
alarm, 307; invitation to be cleansed and justified by the Lord 
Jesus, 308. 

Marriage feast of the Lamb, Lord’s Supper a pledge of, 539, 

Martyrs of the early Church, 331; their theology, 332; endurance of 
tortures, 76, 290, 341; of Tournay, 347. 

Mason, John M., ‘‘ Messiah’s Throne,’’ 643. 

Mediator, necessity and merits of the, 238. 

Mediatorial kingdom of Jesus Christ, 648-60. 

Melville, Henry, ‘‘ The First Prophecy,’ 156. 

Messiah, Jewish expectation of, 139 ; testimony of the Father to, 524. 

Messr1an’s TuHrone, Mason, 643: 

Jesus of Nazareth the true Messiah, 643; I, His Personal Glory, 
1, in essential deity, 644; Scripture gives all marks of deity to the 
only begotten Son,.645; the great God our Saviour the Father of 
spirits, 646; 2, in personal union with human nature, as Mediator and 
Redeemer, 647; II. His Sovereign Rule of the mediatorial kingdom, 
648; 1, its stability as the throne of God, by the Father’s covenant, 
649 ; 2, its administration, in mystery, 650; in wisdom, 6513; and in 
righteousness, 652; 3, Messiah’s means, the Gospel, and Holy Spirit’s 
agency, 653; resources of physical and moral world, 654; 4, the 
resulting prospects, of preservation, 6553; of increase, 657; and of 
triumph, 658; triumph in complete victory over enemies, 658; in 
universal prevalence of righteousness and peace, 659; in the presence 
and manifestation of God, 660; need of salvation by all, 660; saints 
to be joyful in their King, 661; duty to support missionary agencies, 
662; trials in the future, and the Church’s ultimate success, 663. 

Mertuop oF Grace, Whitefield, 197. . 

False ministers a curse, 198; religion a work of the Spirit in the 
heart, 200; to speak peace requires: a bewailing of actual trans- 
gressions, 200; conviction of original sin as a child of Adam, 201; 
covenant of works an iniquity, 203; best duties are sins, 204; great 
sin of unbelief, 205; a historical faith not sufficient, 206 ; Holy Spirit 
convinces of unbelief, 207; justification by faith in Jesus Christ, 207 ; 
salutation to true Christians, 208 ; rest not on past experiences, beware 
of backslidings, 209; keep a close walk with Christ, 210; exhortation 
to the unregenerate and self-righteous, 211; peace with God by Jesus 
Christ alone, 213; sinners reconciled to God in Christ, 215. 

Methodism, Wesley’s account of its origin, 81. 


INDEX, 839 


Ministers, false, a great curse, 198 ; power and frailty of earthly, 507. 
Miracle of the loaves and fishes, 191, 
Mohammed, aim of, 673. 
*“ Moral Dignity of Missions,’’? Wayland, 180. 
evil and its unaccquntableness, 751. * 
reformations, origin in personal faith in God, 195. 
Morality, imperfection of mere, 741-4. 
‘* Morning by Morning,’’ Spurgeon, 309. 
Mutual dependence, the law of, 669. 
Mystery of godliness, the, 664. 
of life, 750, 754. 


Nature, God’s immensity and man’s ignorance proclaimed by, 749. 

Naturalness of faith, 544. 

Nearness of death, 254. 

Necessity and merits of the Mediator, 238 ; 
excludes not God’s care, 394 ; 
of preparing for death, 489. 

Newman, J. H., ‘‘Communion with God,’’ 444, 

New birth, the, 560, 734 ; 
name of love, Christ gives, 615. 

NiIcopEMUS, THE SEEKER AFTER RELIGION, Chapin, 732: 

Character of Nicodemus, 732; his intelligent and inquiring spirit, 

733; the new birth of water and of the Spirit, 734; classes of seekers 
after religion, 734 ; 1, in Rituals and Sacraments, 735 ; hereditary faith 
and its inspiration, 736 ; repudiation of ritualism’s false claims, 737; 
sacraments and rituals not religion, 738; 2,in Philosophy, 738 ; alliance 
of true religion and true philosophy, 739; philosophy a development 
of virtue, religion a regeneration in holiness, 740; Christianity a 
profound moral life, 740; 3, in mere morality, 741 ; formal morality 
a half of religion, 742; morality a motive of selfishness, religion of 
principle, 743; the Christian has piety and morality, 744; 4, religion 
of sentiment not a protracted aspiration, 745; 5, amateur religion of 
liberalists, 746 ; true seekers after religion demand a new heart, 747. 

Nile, rising of the, 714. 


Obedience to God’s law obligatory although sinners cannot obey, 218; and 
submission of Jesus, 574-6. 

‘¢ Office of the Holy Communion,’’ Goulburn, 540. 

Old Testament, teachings of, 505. 

On Christian Love, Latimer, 472: 

Love the sum of all things, 472; the livery of the Saviour’s ser- 
vants, 473; hatred, malice, and discord the devil’s livery, 473; love a 
godly gift, and by justifying faith, 474; love is patient, 475 ; friendly, 
charitable, humble, forbearing, godly, 476 ; a visible badge of Chris- 
tians, 477; love the consummation of the law, 478; restitution de- 
manded from the thievish, 478; Christ gives this grace by the Spirit, 
479; love the daughter, faith the mother, 4793; self-examination obli- 
gatory, 480. 

On Enduring Persecution for Christ, Calvin, 528. 

“* On the City of God,’’ Augustine, 110, 

‘© One Honest Effort,’’ 108. 

Original sin, conviction of, as a child of Adam, essential to repentance, 201. 


840 INDEX. 


Papists, false deductions from. Christ’s fast in the temptation, 381. 
Parable of the Good Samaritan, 703-18. 
Parental love, self-abnegation, substitution, and imputation of, 776. 
Peace, its essentials, 200-7, 
with God found only in Jesus Christ, 213. 
Perfection of nature, man born further from, than any other creature, 761. 
Perseverance, doctrine of, 71. 
Philip, Robert, ‘* Dev otional Guides,’’ 417. 
Philosophy, seekers after religion in, 738-40. 
Philip the evangelist, faith and creed of, 665. 
Plato, banished for innovations, 292. 
his teachings, 288. 
Potter, Alonzo, ‘* Unsearchableness of God’s Thoughts,’’ 748. 
** Practical Sermons,” Archibald Alexander, 217. 
Albert Barnes, 40. 
Prayer, habit and privileges of, 446-53; lifts the soul above passion unto 
God, 779; reverent conversing with God, 445. 
Preachers, evil of false, 198. 
to give freshness to familiar truths the duty of, 137. 
Preaching, powerful when the living echo of Scripture, 02; 
the moral means of grace, 504. 
Pressensé, Edmond de, ** The Teaching of the Church,’’ 501. 
Privilege of access to God, 227. 
Christians, 444. 
PROBLEM OF JOY AND SUFFERING IN LiFy, Tuer, Beecher, 757 : 
Joy promised in the Old Testament, 757 ; tribulation in the New, 
758 ; apparent conflict of these representations, 758 ; Christians joy- 
ful, ascetic, or perplexed, 759; necessity of stating the problem, 
760; happiness the concomitant of moral perfection, 760; man born 
farther from perfection, of nature than any other creature, 761 ; spi- 
ritual manhood in Christ Jesus the real historic problem, 762; ani- 
mality of children at birth, 763 ; progress by evolution, education, and 
sanctifying grace, 763; momentum of civilization, 764; force of the 
law of hereditariness, 765; man born empty of holiness, 765 ; de- 
pravity is alienation from God, 766; problem of life, to unfold God’s 
germ in humanity, 766; men born with faculties, but without knowl- 
edge, 767; five schools, the family, material world, civil society, 
creative industry, 767 ; and the church, 768; joy the fruit of man’s 
highest state, 769 ; sorrow the inevitable conflict in trying to learn, 
769; suffering God’s regent of the universe, 770: 1, evil is the result 
of ignorantly using human faculties, 771; sins punished, infirmities 
pitied, 772: 2, self-denial the victory of a higher faculty over a lower, 
772; hence a lower feeling suffers, and a higher rejoices, 773 ; absur- 
dities of mock self-denials, 773; ‘in honor preferring one another,’’: 
774; self-denial needs wholesome, social excitements, 775; suffering 
incidental to imperfect self-conquest, 775 ; 3, development of parental 
love in self-abnegation, substitution, and imputation, 776 ; 4, atoning 
love of Jesus Christ suffering in life, 777; 5, the way out of suffer- 
ing, upward, 778; prayer lifts the soul above passion unto God, 779; 
sufferings, rightly understood are fiery chariots to bear unto God, 780 ; 
sorrow and suffering are divine means of discipline, 780; rejoicing in 
God’s dispensation, 781. 
Prophecy, Christ in, 583-90. 
The First, Melville, 156-79. 


~~ ee 


INDEX. 841 


PROVIDENCE OF Gop, Tuk, Walden, 797: 


A truth clear to the heart, and obscure to the mind, 797; God an 
infinite Fatherhood to his creatures, 798; mental misgiving because of 
the immensity of the Universe, 798 ; doubt disproved by the gift of our 
Saviour, 799; Redemption pre-eminently a doctrine of Providence, 
799 ; space and number not measured by God as by men, 800 ; His Pro- 
vidence is for the individual, 801 ; the Creator’s works foreshadow His 
Providence, 802; His provision of providential characters, 808; each 
one’s life a plan of God, 804; Christianity manifests His personal 
Providence, 805; earthly life too short for these great issues, 806; 


blessedness of faith in a heavenly Fatherhood, 807. 
Providence of God, a rewarder of faith, 193. 
Book of, declares God’s wisdom and goodness, 750. 
manifest in life’s phenomena, 356-69, 
reliance of Jesus upon, 193. 
Punshon, W. M., ‘‘ The Living Waters,’’ 714. 


Raikes, father of Sunday-schools, 195, 
‘* Redeemer, The,’’ Pressensé, 501. 

warfare and travail of, 494. 
Redemption, a Christmas Sermon, Stockton, 809. 
Redemption, a doctrine of Providence, 799. 

Divine strength, in, 496. 

Eternal, Philip, 417-28. 

foreshadowed by sacrifices, 159. 

magnitude of its work, 493. 

sureness of, 467. 
Reformation outward, not spiritual life, 559. 
Regeneration and sanctification alone fit mortals for heaven, 419. 
Religion, claims of, confirmed by Christ’s character, 136. 

good, practical and usefal, 667. 

seekers after, 732-47. 

victories of Christ’s, 670. 

work of, in the heart by the Spirit, 200. 

world’s judgment of, by temper manifested, 52. 
‘¢ Religious Affections,’’ Edwards, 266. 
** Religions before Christ,’? Pressensé, 501. 
Religious life, many-sided, with many factors, 790. 
Rest, need of periodical, 187. 
Resurrection, a symbol of conversion, 561. 
RESURRECTION OF OUR LorD, THE, Simpson, 625: 


Scene of Jesus’ crucifixion, 625 ; His adoration by the world on 


Easter, 626; cause of His exaltation, 627 ; Christ’s death a fact, 628 ; 
a lingering torture, 629; attended by miraculous convulsions, 630 ; 
and a rending of the Jewish dispensation, 631; bearing the world’s 
sin in His own body, 632; His death of a broken heart, and burial, 
633 ; Christ’s rising from the grave, 634 ; appearance fo disciples, 635 ; 
ascension into heaven, 636; Results: the Bible and His divine power 
proved, 637; the resurrection attested, 638; Christ the first fruits, 
639; saints to be exalted, 640; mortality victorious by Christ’s resur- 
rection, 641; duties of the waiting Christian, 642. 


Retirement as necessary as publicity, 186. 
Revealed religion, a synopsis of, 664-6, 


842 INDEX. 


Revelation, Book of, and its mysteries, 752. 

its analogies with Nature and Providence, 753. 
‘* Revivals of the Eighteenth Century,’’ Whitefield, 197. 
Ridley, Bishop, death of, 472. 
Righteous, alive in God, 36. 
Rituals and sacraments, partial value of, in religion, 735-8. 
Robertson, F. W., ‘‘ Loneliness of Christ,’’ 241. 


Sacraments and rituals not religion, 738; baptism and Lord’s Supper, 
527 ; types of Saviour in all dispensations, 535. 

Sacrifice, all good deeds require a, 353. 

Salvation, by faith only, 790; by the foolishness of the cross, 286 ; condi- 
tions of, suited to all, 132 ; God’s plan infinitely wise, 418, 695 ; yet 
incomprehensible, 756; peace found in, 491; two-fold, 510; for- 
giveness of sins, and ‘‘ made meet to be partakers of the inheritance,’’ 
438 ; reconciliation by the Saviour’s death, 19, 500; regeneration by 
the Spirit, 500. 

Samaritan, The Good, Hanna, 703-13. 

Sanctification, justification and, 103, 510. 

Satan, temptation of Jesus by, 385-96; warfare of, with God and man, 
156-79. 

Saurin, Jacques, ‘‘ Christian Heroism,’’ 397. 

Saving grace, fatherhood of, 556. 

Saviour of the world, Jesus the, 155. 

Schools of life: family, material world, civil society, creative industry, 
and the church, 767-8. 

Scriptures, catholicity and value of, 134-5 ; disclose man’s duty, 374 ; place 
the reader alone with God, 302; practical, 259 ; preaching efficacious 
when living echo of, 502 ; sword of the Spirit against Satan, 393-5. 

Sea of Galilee, 182. 

Seekers after religion, 732-47. 

Self-abnegation, Christ’s example of, 196. 

Self-denial, the victory of a higher faculty over a lower, 772-5. 

Self-examination, tongue’s government an index for, 545; helps to, by 
marks of grace, 298-305 ; obligatory, 480. 

Self-example, Saviour’s lesson of, 184. 

Self-reliance, 242, 250. 

Self-righteous, exhortatation to the, 211; ignorant of God, 297. 

Self-righteousness of angels, no restraint to their fall, 419. 

Sensibility, danger of diseased, 246. 

Sentimentality, uselessness of selfish, 713. 

Sentiment, religion of, 745. 

‘*Sermons,’’ Newman Hall, 609. 

Severity of our Lord in judgment, 687-99. 

Simpson, Matthew, ‘* The Resurrection of Our Lord,’? 625. 

Sin, not extirpated by mere repentance and reformation, 4203; only pre- 
ventive of, the cross of Christ, 424. 

‘¢ Sinai and Palestine,’’ Stanley, 349. 

- Sinners, death of, no glory to God, 486 ; message of Christianity to, 352; 
reconciled to God in Christ, 215. 

Society, temptations of, 403. 

Socrates, condemned for innovations, 293; death of, contrasted with Jesus’, 
572; and with the martyrs’, 289. 

Solitude of space, 241; of spirit, 242. 


INDEX. 843 


Son of God, Christ’s testimony to, 666; denial of the, by Satan, 391; Jesus 
Christ the, 148, 153, 303, 455-71, 645; repeated soul-conflicts of the, 
578; temptation of, 380. 

Sorrow, the inevitable conflict of life in trying to learn, 769. 

Soul, awakening of the, to feel God, 247. 

SOVEREIGNTY OF Gop, Dwight, 355: 

Life a way in which all travel, 355 ; God’s sovereignty peculiarly 
manifest in life’s contrivance, progress, and accomplishment, 356 ; His 
will irresistible, but not arbitrary, 357 ; all happiness found in com- 
pliance therewith, 357; Illustrations: I. Birth and education, depend 
not on one’s self, 358 ; the Indian, 358 ; Bedouin Arab, British noble- 
man, 359; beggar, Chinaman, Mohammedan, Hindoo, 360; worldly- 
minded man, virtuous and religious, 361; these birth distinctions from 
Providence, 362 ; yet man a free agent, 362; II. Man’s course of life 
different from that intended, 363; lawyer, physician, 363; legislator, 
merchant, farmer, 364; happiness eludes riches and honor, 364; 
power and indulgence bring not happiness, or contentment, 365 ; illus- 
tration by students of a class, 365; varying characters and attain- 
ments, 366: passionate, timid, slothful, contented, hopeful, 367 ; 
impotent, successful, 368; failure of aspirations, 368; III. Life 
depends not on man, 369; Hence: reasons for our gratitude to the 
Creator, 370; necessity for moderate desires, 371; reasonableness of 
committing one’s self to God’s control, 372 ; goodness, sincerity, and 
mercy of God, 373; man’s duty disclosed by Scripture, 374; life a 
voyage with hidden perils, 374; blessings from acknowledging God’s 
sovereignty, 375. 

Speech, object and government of, 542-8. 

Spurgeon, Chas. H., ‘‘Condescension of Christ,’’ 309. 

Stanley, Arthur P., ‘‘Jesus of Nazareth,’’ 349. 

Stockton, Thomas H., ‘‘ A Christmas Sermon,’’ 809. 

Suffering, and Joy in Life, the problem of, 757-81 ; 

Christians thereby conformed to Christ, 334 ; 

of Jesus in Gethsemane, and its practical teachings, 568-81. 
Sunday Schools, organized in Gloucester by Raikes, 195 ; power of, 673. 
Supreme Being, gradation of thought to the, 228. 


Taylor, Jeremy, ‘‘ Christ’s Advent to Judgment,’’ 682. 
TEACHING OF THE CHURCH, Pressensé, 501: 

Reciprocal teaching of the Church and Christians, 501; preaching 
efficacious when the living echo of Scripture, 502; all hearers to take 
heed how they hear, 502 ; spirit of the Divine Master’s teaching, 503 ; 
negligence and ignorance of modern Christendom, 504 ; preaching the 
moral means of grace, 505 ; teaching of God in the Old Testament, 
505; and in the New, 506; power and frailty of an earthly ministry, 
507; all powerful testimony of the Holy Spirit, 508; message and 
presence of God, 509; reconciliation by the blood of our Lord, and 
holiness by the Spirit, 510; importance of contemplating spiritual 
things, 511; heart and conscience the field of religious truth, 512; 
Christian truth a holy law, and its practice conversion, 513; the will 
to add progress in holiness to progress in knowledge, 514; *Chris- 
tianity arule of life for every-day existence, 515; rejection of the 
message a terrible condemnation, 5153 the Gospel either spiritual life 
or death, 516;.exhortation to take heed, 517. 


844 : INDEX. 


Temper, disciplined by controlling the tongue, 546; manifestation of, 
world’s test of religion, 52. 
Temptation of Christ, The First, Knox, 377: 

a test of virtue, 378; does not separate from God’s mercy, 380 ; 
of anger and revenge, 119. 

Tessera, tally of hospitality, 613-6. 
Thankfulness a chief ‘duty of Christians, 94. 
Tue Crucirrixion, Krummacher, 598: 

Great day of Atonement, and its ceremonies, 598; fulfilled i in the 
inmaculate Jesus, 599; Prince of Life led to death, 599 ; mourners at 
the foot of Calvary, 600; the eminence of Golgotha, 601 ; spiritual 
centre of the earth, 602; Christ mankind’s representative atonement, 
602; indignities to our surety, 603; echo of hammer and nails from 
Calvary,604; rejection of the crucified Jesus by earth and heaven, 
605 ; His blood a legacy to the Church, 606; His atonement universal 
and perpetual, 607; believers to be crucified with Christ, 608. 

Tue First Propuecy, Melville, 156: 

Curse on the serpent, 156; chiefly against the devil, 157; enmity 
between mankind and serpents, 157; war announced between Satan 
and man, 158; sacrifices foreshadowing redemption, 159; prophecy 
comprehensive of all time, 160; enmity against Satan put by God, 
161; therefore partial, and not universal, 162; seed of Satan, the 
wicked, 163; Eve and her seed the Church of God, 164; perpetual 
conflict of these parties, 165; I. In the Church’s Head, Christ Jesus, 
166; rejected by the Jews because of his hatred of sin, 167 ; Christ’s 
suffering, the bruising of His heel, 169; Christ’s redemption the 
crushing of Satan’s head, 170; II. In the Church collectively, by per- 
secution, 172 ; prophesying as God’s witness in sackcloth, yet bruising 
Satan’s head, 172; III. In each individual Christian, 173; enmity 
with the world ‘‘the offence of the cross,’’ 174; a painful struggle, 
but victory certain, 176; death merely a bruising of the heel, 176; 
Satan vanquished by faith, 177; no deliverance for Satan, 179; ‘‘O 
God, put enmity between us and the serpent,’ 179. 

‘*The Suffering Saviour,’? Krummacher, 598. 

‘¢ Theological and Biblical Cyclopedia,”’? 527. 

‘‘ Theology Explained and Defended in a Series of Sermons,’’ Dwight, 
355. 

Theology of the early martyrs, 832. 

Tue TRANSFIGURATION, Kingsley, 518: 

Its story, 518; human character of Jesus, 519; revelation of His 
spiritual glory, 520; necessity of worship, and capacity for veneration, 
520; declaration of Christ’s kingship. 521 ; teaching of a spiritual body, 
522 ; Christ the fulfilment of the Law and Prophets, 522; testimony 
of Moses and Elijah, 523; testimony of the Father to the Messiah, 
524; pure thought and learning sanctified by the Lord, 525 ; Christians 
to fight against evil as God’s servants, 526 ; works, and not raptures, 
the good fruits of faith, 527. 

Tholuck, A. G. T., *‘ Jesus in Gethsemane,’’ 568. 
Thomson, Edward, ‘* What Think Ye of Christ ?’’ 582. 
Thoughts, evil to be judged, 692. 

‘* Thoughts on Personal Religion,’’ Goulburn, 540. 
Time, Improvement of, Rowland Hill, 254. 

‘¢'Tom Brown’s School Days at Rugby,’’ 32. 

Tongue, Government of the, Goulburn, 540-50. 


INDEX. | . 845 


Triumph of Christ’s kingdom, 658-60. 
‘* Truth and the Life, The,’’ McIlvaine, 94. 


Understanding, enlightenment, needed by the, 74. 

** University Sermons,’’? Wayland, 180. 

Unregenerate, exhortation to the, 211, 273-8. 
UNSEARCHABLENESS OF Gop’s THOUGHTS, Potter, 748: 

Finite minds cannot grasp thoughts of the Infinite and Eternal 
Mind, 749; Book of Nature proclaims God’s immensity and man’s 
ignorance, 749; mystery succeeds to mystery, 750; Book of Pro- 
vidence declares the goodness and wisdom of God, 750; moral evil, 
and its unaccountableness, 751; yet God is almighty, all-wise, all- 
gracious, 7525; Book of Revelation, and its mysteries, 752 ; analogies 
of Revelation, Providence, and Nature, 753; mysteries of life, body, 
and spirit, 754 ; imbecility of man, 754; mind limited but improvable, 
755; facts the proper subject of inquiry, and experience the source 
of information, 755; ‘‘ What saith the Lord ?’’ our guide in spiritual 
things, 756; God’s plan of salvation infinitely wise yet incomprehen- 
sible, and to be accepted in faith, 756. 

Unworthiness of man to have access to God, 231. 


Vegetable kingdom, figures of the, 487. 

Victory, Christian, Newman Hall, 609-24 ; 
of God by contraries, 286; irresistible, but not arbitrary, 357; over 
wills not persons, 499; of Christianity, 670. 

*¢ Village Dialogues,’’ Rowland Hill, 254. 

*¢ Village Sermons,’’ Kingsley, 517. 

Virtue, affliction the source of passive, 87. 
hostility of body and soul to, 401-3. 

Voyage and perils of life, 374. 


- 


Walden, Treadwell, ‘*‘ The Providence of God,’’ 797. 

Warfare, Christian, 209-24. 

Wastefulness rebuked by Christ, 192. 

Waters, The Living, Punshon, 714, 

Wayland, Francis, ‘* A Day in the Life of Jesus of Nazareth,” 180. 
Wesley, John, ** God’s Love to Fallen Man,’’ 81. 

Westminster Catechism, its definition of baptism, 552. 

Wuat Tuink YE or Curist? Thomson, 582: 

Gospels, alone, not a complete conception of the Saviour, 582; His 
three aspects: I. In Prophecy, as a promised Deliverer, 583; fore- 
shadowed by Isaiah, and in Abraham’s offering of Isaac on Mount 
Moriah, 584; in Jacob’s prediction of Shiloh, and Micah’s of Beth- 
lehem, 585; in Daniel’s prophecy-of Messiah’s time of coming, 586 ; 
Christ’s functions of prophet, 586; priest and king, 5875 all prophecy 
testifies to Jesus Christ as the Messiah, 588; the Jewish false interpre- 
tation, 589; absurdity of Bolingbroke’s infidel’ argument, 590; 
II. Christ of the Evangelists, 590; He is divinely announced, 990 ; 
is divinely protected, educated, and empowered, 591; suffers preter- 
naturally in His temptation, in Gethsemane, and on the cross, 592 ; 
ill. Christ of history, 593; manifested to the world, since Pentecost, 
by the Church, His body, 593; moral miracle of the Church’s founda- 
tion, miraculous spread, 594; and wonderful preservation, 595 ; 


846 INDEX, 


Christ manifested in the experience of saints, 595; Christ the hope and 
experience of Christendom, 596; moral triumphs of Christianity, 597. 

White stone, promise of the, 613-6. 

Wicked, the seed of Satan, 163; 
three accusers of, in judgment, 695-701. 

Wickedness, maturity of, in hell, 107; ie 
permitted to fill up the measure of sins, 267. 

Will, the, its need to be inflamed, 76. 
its conquest God’s victory, 499. . 

Williams, Roger, advocate of soul-liberty, 195. 

Works, the power of faith, 791. 

World, not orphaned of a present God, 719; 
the devil’s bride, 435 ; 
wisdom of the, made foolish by the cross, 284. 

Worldly, the, dead to heavenly j Joys, 102. 

Worship, necessity of, 520. 

WRATH UPON THE WickED TO THE UrrerRmMost, Edwards, 266: 

Thessalonians were Christians in faith and sufferings, 266; wicked- 

ness of Jews permitted ‘‘to fill up their sins,’’ 267 ; connection between 
measure of sins and measure of punishment, 267; wrath: fulfilled on 
Judea to the utmost degree, 268 ; its certainty and near approach, 268 ; 
Doctrine: 1, a certain measure set to each one’s sin, 268; 2, the 
wicked are filling the measure set them, 269; 3, when the measure is 
filled, wrath comes to the uttermost, 270; without restraint or moder- 
ation, 270; without merciful circumstances, 271; so as utterly to undo 
the subject, 272; wrath eternal, 272; to the uttermost of the threaten- 
ings, 273; Exhortations of warning, 273: 1, great means and 
advantages permitted, 274; warnings of bereavement, sickness, acci- 
dents, and of the Spirit, 275 ; examples of the awakened, 276 ; 2, dread- 
fulness of God’s wrath, 276; 3, partial execution of wrath in this 
world, 277; contrast of glorious promises and awful threatenings, 278. 

Wretchedness of man shown by the cross, 17. 

** Wycliffe and the Huguenots,’’ Hanna, 703, 


THE END. 


> =e. ~ 


+ 
\ 
’ 
4 1 
‘ 
u as 
Ve 
oe 
. 
_: 
7 
“ 
‘ 
' 
q ¢ 
ul + 
Z 4 ‘ 
i - 
i 
\ 
j 
Y 
‘ 
j 
parse 
i ' 
Me 
y i! 
~ rt 
; 
a 
i 
| 4 
1 
i at 
' 
» 











ALN p 
Savi VF On 
3 } mes 
mai , 
¢ ' 
4 2 
fi 
; ‘ 
, f. = 5 
ey 
i: ‘ ¥ ‘ 
' ‘ 
Ae ‘ 
bs 1 
iyer- 
r ‘ 
i] 
- 4 
4. * 
ll . 
* 
i 
i ‘ , 
\ 
5 
‘ : 
is 
™ 
. i] | 
y 
p ‘- ~ 
| 
1 “hh 
( 
‘ » » 
. yeas 
7 aa ‘ 
1 " ; 
- a 
{ | i 2 





* 
4 


pe a Sees non nbowagtly tA 





Ze i. 42 











mh AN, oD 


QepZecect cLL0 € 


| 


WNVGHN-SIONITH 4O ALISHAAINN 


So” 





4 e = L253 tn = a a "2, | 

- aR as i. “2 — 4 ‘ 
i ee" .- - me pw a 

“ta ae 


eer Gas = . ¥ tt % 
“ é og : My . a 8 F SS ees 
> 4 ic ae fERI RS oon s Ky ee a ato 


a 





ee 


‘ 


pay 


j 


itd 





“HIM DECLARE fT UNTO YOU 





2 





lt ran ins et nce et ie alles cane Miata ee ee 


—— 


Lnrere een = SS. 
- ee ee 





